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The Kremlin announced late on June 24 that Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko negotiated a deal under which Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin will travel to Belarus without facing criminal charges in Russia; some portion of Wagner Group

Some key takeaways :

The Kremlin struggled to cohere an effective rapid response to Wagner’s advances, highlighting internal security weaknesses likely due to surprise and the impact of heavy losses in Ukraine.

Putin unsurprisingly elected to back the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and its ongoing efforts to centralize control of Russian irregular forces (including Wagner) over Prigozhin.

The Lukashenko-brokered agreement will very likely eliminate Wagner Group as a Prigozhin-led independent actor in its current form, although elements of the organization may endure under existing and new capacities.

Prigozhin likely gambled that his only avenue to retain Wagner Group as an independent force was to march against the Russian MoD, likely intending to secure defections in the Russian military but overestimating his own prospects.

The optics of Belarusian President Lukashenko playing a direct role in halting a military advance on Moscow are humiliating to Putin and may have secured Lukashenko other benefits.

The Kremlin now faces a deeply unstable equilibrium. The Lukashenko-negotiated deal is a short-term fix, not a long-term solution, and Prigozhin’s rebellion exposed severe weaknesses in the Kremlin and Russian MoD.

  • tl;dr bot@lemmy.worldBEnglish
    223·
    1 year ago

    tl;dr:

    ISW will cover subsequent reports in the June 25 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment. Russian sources widely voiced concerns that the rebellion could disrupt Russian forces’ ability to defend against Ukrainian counteroffensives, but many milbloggers asserted that Russian forces are continuing to repel Ukrainian attacks. Prigozhin attempted to justify his armed rebellion by accusing the Russian MoD - namely Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the Russian General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov - of causing irreversible Russian losses on the battlefield and for striking a Wagner base, but notably did not criticize Putin. Russian milbloggers claimed that intensified Ukrainian assaults and decreased Russian artillery fire contributed to Ukrainian advances south of Orikhiv during the night of June 23 and on June 24. Russian forces continued ground attacks near Kreminna amid Russian claims of continued Ukrainian assaults in the area on June 24.

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