When Russia invaded Ukraine, approximately 95 % of its regular army was there. Only 5 % remained inside Russia. To this day, approximately 200.000 Russians have been killed or wounded in the war. That’s almost the same number as Russian attacked Ukraine with. Now, private military companies are not obliged to reveal their losses, and the Russian military always downplays its losses, meaning even more losses could be the fact.
When Prigozhin’s Wagner troops began their sprint towards Moscow on Friday/Saturday, they were 25.000, 5.000 of them being a vanguard. The regular forces suffered casaulties against the 5.000 Wagnerites and it’s said that Wagner tried to reach former veterans inside Moscow in order to recruit them. So, could Putin have resisted?
Vladimir Putin is said to have a security apparatus of hundreds of thousands of men. But yesterday, we witnessed boys with weapons and police officers in Moscow. Not security forces. Perhaps they were unseen. Perhaps they were not, because it’s a sham, a paper machier construction.
That GRU, the Russian military intelligence, suffered losses in Ukraina was known before the intelligence leak this spring, but not how big. Washington Post analyzed papers and it seems (if I comprehend the scope correctly) GRU sent five brigades (5 * 900 soldiers) to Ukraine. Three of them have been virtually annihilated, one has been placed in the catastrophic fight for Vuhledar and suffered losses this year and, one has been slightly damaged by the war. These soldiers require at least four years of training and apparently they died like flies inside Ukraine. So much for their training.
The “Chechen warriors” under Kadyrov raced to intercept Wagner. They live by their rumour, although they are deeply divided into Kadyrovites and Chechens who oppose Russia. Apparently the Kadyrovites use the rumour of being ferocious fighters, but are really not true. They have suffered losses in Ukraine, as they appear not to be more than boastful and erratic.
In Sweden, there’s a diaspora waiting to return to Chechnya to fight Kadyrov and Russia, and other Chechens have joined the Ukrainian side so far, fighting what they deem are the traitors of Kadyrov.
The Russian army has suffered staggering losses in Ukraine, with Wagner forces and airborne forces being the veterans, among the best survivors of the Russian forces so far. Could the paper tiger from Chechnya been able to do much against these veterans?
Let’s not forget the Ukrainian attacks on Moscow, Belgorod and other places, revealing the leack of preparedness and competence in the Russian ranks.
Prigozhin and Wagner sailed through Rostov-on-Don and Voronezh, in hours taking military headquarters with almost no resistance (that we know of). They were greeted by civilians, being given water, food and respect for being true to Russia. Putin must’ve panicked if he heard and saw that regular people in the vicinity of the war considers the war Putin wages as going completely wrong.
My very basic, simple and amateurish guess is that Putin panicked. Prigozhin wasn’t going to hand over his only real possession, Wagner, after the new law, and he wasn’t going to end up in the infamous Lefortovo prison, being tortured and possibly executed by the FSB. So, he gambled. And the snake bit Putin’s hand.
The Chechens weren’t able to intercept the Wagner forces, and it would’ve resulted in battles between them in many regions, with the Russian army inside Ukraine suffering from broken logistical lines and rotation. In Moscow, there’s no spetznaz forces to speak of, and my argument is that the veterans of Wagner would’ve decimated the “elite” forces, just like the Ukrainians decimated them. They’re also a paper tiger construction. Wagner would’ve conquered parts of Moscow, and Putin, not a brave man, would’ve fled before that, not being in control any longer in his train or his jet plane. The snake showed us that the emperor is all but draped in paper, nothing more.
Putin had to aquiesce, revealing yet again that he is rather powerless, unable to win in Ukraine, unable to control a private military company opposing him. Even if Prigozhin were to suffer sooner or later, perhaps some of his soldiers are fiercely loyal and will take revenge? I fear the board is being set, inadvertenly, by many players, many more right extreme than Putin himself. He wanted to restore Russian glory, but will see Russia ripped to pieces if he doesn’t understand how to revert course now.