Mutiny lays bare prospect for Putin of 'forever war' in Ukraine
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[June 26, 2023]
By Tom Balmforth
KYIV (Reuters) - An abortive mutiny in Russia has shown the risks the
Kremlin faces from a long, grinding conflict in Ukraine even though it
has not handed Kyiv an immediate breakthrough on the battlefield.
Many questions still swirl after Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny
Prigozhin's Wagner forces returned to base after Friday's mutiny, which
was called off the following day under a deal brokered by the president
of Belarus.
But current and former officials in Kyiv say the mutiny offered a
startling glimpse into the strain the Russian political system is under.
It revealed that Russian reserve forces were so thin they struggled to
respond to the threat.
"I think clearly they're not in a safe space regarding the endless
continuation of the war," Andriy Zagorodniuk, Ukraine's defence minister
from 2019 to 2020, told Reuters.
"Remember the concept of the 'forever war' that was in the press? I
think they will have to rethink that."
A war stretching many more months and possibly years would inevitably
mean more deaths and wounded on each side.
Since Putin sent his forces into Ukraine in February 2022 in what he
called a "special military operation" Western officials put the death
toll in the tens of thousands.
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The apparent ease with which Prigozhin's Wagner mercenary forces
barrelled hundreds of kilometres towards Moscow from Russia's south
facing little resistance was striking, Zagorodniuk said.
"They started to pool resources in order to stop them. We saw those
resources and they weren't substantial...Essentially, they don't have
much force left apart from what they have at the front right now," he
said.
U.S. officials, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said much
remained unclear, including why Russian forces did not do more to halt
Wagner's advance.
The Kremlin, a day after accusing Prigozhin of leading the mutiny, said
he would be allowed to move to Belarus without facing charges in return
for calling off his forces from hurtling towards Moscow.
No further details of the deal are known.
Prigozhin, once personally close to Putin and whose fighters played a
prominent role in Russia's offensives in the east, had made many
blistering verbal attacks on Russia's defence minister Sergei Shoigu and
top military brass over the weeks. He had even challenged the rationale
for the war.
"Any chaos behind the enemy lines works in our interests," Ukraine's
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said.
But Kyiv officials caution that even without its crack Wagner fighters,
Russia still maintains a vast army inside Ukraine and is able to recruit
more soldiers.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential official, told Reuters the
turmoil would deal a blow to the morale of Russian troops.
"The additional demoralisation of Russian soldiers and additional doubts
among the Russian generals, who have been demonstrably humiliated, will
worsen the quality of the defence somewhat."
NO CONCESSIONS
The turmoil in Russia comes with no end in sight to Moscow's
16-month-old invasion and neither side willing to make concessions.
Western-backed Ukraine is in the early phases of a long-touted
counteroffensive to retake occupied land in its south and east. It says
its main offensive thrust is yet to come with the bulk of its troops not
committed.
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![](../images/062623PIX/news_h1.jpg)
Fighters of Wagner private mercenary
group pull out of the headquarters of the Southern Military District
to return to base, in the city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia, June 24,
2023. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Jun/26/images/ads/current/bees_lda_HEROES_2023.png)
Several weeks into operations, Kyiv has recaptured a string of
villages, although President Voldomyr Zelenskiy has acknowledged the
advance has been "slower than desired".
A senior Central European diplomat said they saw "no immediate
effect on the war" from Prigozhin's aborted mutiny.
But the diplomat cautioned that many questions remained unanswered
from the weekend's events so it was too early to say anything about
longer-term impact.
The Ukrainian military's National Resistance Centre said Russia had
flown up to two companies of its 76th Airborne Assault Division to
Moscow from the front on Saturday and that it planned to keep them
there for at least a week.
"It should be noted that there are no facts of a mass transfer of
enemy forces, we're talking about individual units," it said.
Ukraine has reported no other changes to the Russian army's posture
on the battlefield where Moscow's forces had months to prepare for a
Ukrainian counterattack by digging thousands of trenches and laying
minefields.
Britain's defence ministry said on Sunday that Kyiv's forces had
reset in recent days and been undertaking major offensive operations
on three main axes in the south and east.
Ukraine keeps a tight lid on information from the front.
A senior Ukrainian defence official said on Saturday that Kyiv's
forces attacked in several areas of the east, making some ground,
though she gave no further details. She said heavy fighting was
under way in the south.
'RUSSIANS NOT GOING ANYWHERE'
Zelenskiy, who projects his disdain of Putin at wartime news
conferences, derided the "chaos" in Russia, saying it should prompt
Russian troops to return home to look after their own country.
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As the turmoil unfolded, Zelenskiy said Putin looked "very afraid"
and suggested he was probably in hiding.
"Today the world can see that the masters of Russia control nothing.
And that means nothing. Simply complete chaos. An absence of any
predictability," he said.
The fate of Wagner is not yet clear. The mercenary group was has
proven one of Russia's most effective fighting forces and was
instrumental in the capture in April of the eastern city of Bakhmut
after the longest and bloodiest battles of the war.
The Kremlin has said Wagner's fighters would not be prosecuted for
the mutiny in recognition of their previous service to Russia, and
if they had not taken part they could sign contracts with the
Defence Ministry.
Zagorodniuk said he believed Russia would likely to merge the group
into existing units inside its army and that it would cease to
exist.
"That's relatively good news. But there are still going to be lots
of hostilities, there is still going to be a war: the Russians are
not going anywhere," he said.
(Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv, Andrew Gray in
Brussels and Phil Stewart in Washington, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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