Worldcrunch
The arrest in Paris of Telegram founder Pavel Durov raises a lingering question about who actually controls the Russian messaging and social platform. Some say it’s Vladimir Putin’s most powerful (not-so) secret weapon in the global hybrid war aimed at spreading backward ideology and destabilizing the world.
President Vladimir Putin had transferred elite “Grom” troops after the fallout from last year’s Wagner Group mutiny to the south-central Russian republic of Bashkortostan, where there is dissent about preserving local language and culture.
Since the West has largely abandoned the fight against terror in the region, Russia’s hour seems to have come. Until now, the transit country for migration has wavered as to whether it should break with the EU and turn to Moscow. A new deal is now sending a clear signal.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, political commentators have consistently returned to the question of Putin’s successor. Russia expert Andreas Umland foreshadows a potentially tumultuous transition, resulting in a new power regime. Whether this is more or less democratic than the current Putinist system, is difficult to predict.
An investigation by the Russian publication Agents Media finds that a number of Russian criminals who were granted amnesty in exchange for fighting in Ukraine have returned home and have been implicated in violent crimes — including more than a dozen murders.
They were offered high salaries, promises of honor, and state welfare. But Wagner Group fighters say Russia treated them like pariahs after they returned from the war in Ukraine.
Many had predicted that the death last month of Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin meant the demise of the mercenary outfit. Yet signs in recent days say the private military outfit is active again in Ukraine, a reminder of the Kremlin’s interest in continuing a private fighting formula that has worked all around the world.
After a sighting by a Ukrainian drone operator, details emerge of how the Russian mercenary group has been redeployed in the strategic Ukrainian city of Bakhmut it had helped conquer earlier this year. That was followed by the dramatic coup and departure from Ukraine led by Wagner’s now late leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Wagner PMC has built up a powerful network on the African continent. It’s one of the mercenary group’s greatest assets — and now, a Kremlin takeover of Wagner could even strengthen its influence in Africa, including through the recent coups d’état in Niger and Gabon.
After celebrated Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash, following his attempted coup against Russian President Vladimir Putin, some Wagner adherents are convinced Prigozhin is not dead. A video from Africa is adding fuel to the fire.
Veterans of Wagner PMC, the mercenary group run by now-deceased Yevgeny Prigozhin, are scattered all over Russia. Many are now threatening to exact their revenge. But it is Russian President Vladimir Putin who wields the power, and there are plenty inside and outside Wagner who may be in his sights.
Yevgeny Prigozhin is gone, two months to the day of his aborted insurrection against the Russian military. The Wagner Group chief was likely killed in a plane crash on orders from the Kremlin. A piece written after Wagner’s coup offers a reminder that Russia is in the hands of a man obsessed with control, who wields his cowardice as a weapon.
Two months after his failed coup, the Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has reportedly died on Wednesday in a plane crash. Many questions remain unanswered, but one thing is for sure: we know who is bound to benefit the most.
Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and longtime ally Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko have issued statements accusing Poland of having territorial ambitions in Ukraine. It’s a worrying development that opens the door to military confrontation with NATO — and the looming presence of Wagner troops isn’t making things easier.
The last of the former convicts who served under the Wagner mercenary are heading home. According to private Telegram chats of the soldiers’ relatives, many are currently staying in resorts and hotels along the Black Sea awaiting pardons, and behaving badly. Some may end up staying on with Wagner in Belarus.
After the Wagner mutiny, the palatial home of the mercenary group’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was searched in St. Petersburg. Among other chilling finds was a framed photograph of the severed heads of slain Africans. It fits in with the profile of a man Proekt media calls “Putin’s Sadist.”
The Wagner mercenaries, who came to the world’s attention for their involvement in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and more recently in the coup attempt, have been operating in Africa and elsewhere for years with a profitable formula to cash in on ongoing conflict.
From the depths of his prison cell, President Putin’s best-known opponent, Alexei Navalny, appears to have a plan for how to turn Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed uprising into new momentum for his cause for democracy and regime change in Moscow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had long governed in a fragmented style, holding together multiple “gray zones” with his personal influence because he has never trusted the traditional state apparatus nor the private sector. But it comes with a predicament, exemplified by the recent Wagner insurrection: his grasp on power only goes as far as the loyalty of Russia’s elites.
July 3 – July 9, 2023
The excitement with which the West watched Prigozhin’s failed uprising reveals the delusional hopes that somehow a Russian white (or black) knight will come to overthrow Putin. No, there’s still only one way to be rid of him, argues Ukrainian writer Anna Akage.
There are many lessons to be taken from Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted uprising in the halls of power China. Going forward, Beijing will see Russia as a model on what to avoid in maintaining stability autocratic rule.
Alexander Lukashenko recounts how he took charge of the operation to defend Moscow from Yevgeny Prigozhin, and looks to shift the region’s balance of power. “I am as much a participant in these events as Putin. So if someone in Russia talks about Lukashenko mediating, there is no mediation!”
The recent revolt led by Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has opened the door to what Russia could become after Vladimir Putin is deposed.
Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted coup against Russian President Vladimir Putin reveals the great confusion that reigns in Russia, and the weakness of the Kremlin’s leader — but it’s a weakness that makes him all the more unpredictable.
The fate of Prigozhin, Putin and Ukraine hang in the balance. And though much is still not clear, Russia is simply no longer under the reign of an all-powerful Vladimir Putin.
Much is still unclear about the reported insurrection by Wagner mercenary group forces against the Russian regular military troops. But one long-view scenario would have Yevgeny Prigozhin making a lot of noise to ultimately help Vladimir Putin stay in power. The story of Ivan the Terrible, the dreaded 16th century Tsar, and his brutal henchman, offers a blueprint.
Head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has launched an apparent all-out insurrection against the Russian military. His gambit seems a long shot to succeed, but behind his audacity and aggressive rhetoric Prigozhin has acquired a powerful mix of audacity, money and media visibility that will not be easy to vanquish, says Russian political scientist Ekaterina Shulman
The Defense Ministry had pushed for a bill to adopt the same dubious method of recruiting volunteers from prisons begun by the Wagner Group private mercenary outfit. Parliament approved it on Tuesday, the latest sign of the Kremlin’s desperate search to recruit soldiers to stave off the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The owner of the Wagner mercenary group says he will refuse an order from Russia’s defense ministry to fold his fighters into the regular military — but it may be a sign that the Russian government finally wants to get rid of the increasingly powerful mercenary chief.
Desperate to supply depleting forces in Ukraine, Russia’s defense ministry has taken up the dubious recruiting method of offering prisoners freedom in exchange for going off to war. The same technique was begun but then halted in February by the Wagner Group mercenaries. It’s Putin’s latest attempt to avoid a nationwide mobilization.
As Vladimir Putin’s end increasingly seems near (political or physical), the battle to replace the Kremlin strongman heats up. Here are the main characters in this very Russian blood sport.
Fighting has been fierce for the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. What is the price of a victory that is, above all, symbolic?
The killing of likely hundreds of Russian troops has set of a spiral of recriminations that could change the way Moscow approaches its 10-month-old invasion of Ukraine
An inmate of the penal colony in the town of Kopeysk reveals the different ways convicts are recruited in the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, whose founder and Putin confidante Yevgeny Prigozhin personally sought the most violent criminals with vows to pay big sums and expunge their sentences.