Associated Press
Did mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin have inside help from the military and political elite in his armed rebellion that rattled Russia?
A week after the mutiny raised the most daunting challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s rule in over two decades, key details about the uprising are still unknown.
Uncertainty also swirls around the fate of Prigozhin and his Wagner private military forces, along with the deal they got from the Kremlin, and what the future holds for the Russian defense minister they tried to oust.
Finally, and perhaps the biggest unknown: Can Putin shore up the weaknesses revealed by the events of last weekend?
DID PRIGOZHIN HAVE INSIDE HELP?
Many observers argue that Prigozhin wouldn’t have been able to take over military facilities in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don so easily on June 24 and mount his rapid march toward Moscow without collusion with some members of the military brass.
Thousands of members of his private army drove nearly 1,000 kilometers (about 620 miles) across Russia without facing any serious resistance and shot down at least seven military aircraft, killing at least 10 airmen.
Prigozhin said they got as close as 200 kilometers (about 125 miles) from Moscow when he ordered them to turn back under a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. That agreement granted amnesty to him and forces from his Wagner Group of private contractors, allowing them to move to Belarus.
Some Kremlin watchers believe senior military officers could have backed his push for the ouster of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the chief of the General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov. Or they simply decided to wait and see what happened.
“The Wagner mercenary boss was counting on solidarity from senior army officers, and since he came close to reaching Moscow without encountering any particular resistance, he might not have been completely mistaken,” analyst Mikhail Komin wrote in a commentary for…
Read the full article here