Vladimir Putin is in a tight corner. His muscles are in a fix. The coup against the Russian czar is making news, and it is official that the writ of the Kremlin is compromised. The uprising by a private militia chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was at the beck and call of the defence ministry for mercenary manpower, through his unit called Wagner, had crossed swords with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. It seems he is questioning the rationale of an unjust and ill-planned war in Ukraine. This standoff is posing the state of Russia and President Putin a serious challenge, and the latter has called it as a stab in his back, vowing to put down the mutiny. But what makes the picture quite perplexed is the utterance from Prigozhin that it is not a coup against Putin, casting rumours of a possible false-flag operation by Russian authorities to grind the axe in the region and beyond.
Prigozhin’s forces at the moment are in control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, and there are also reports that the mutiny is evident in other peripheries of the country, where they are holding back key military installations. The declared ambition is to oust the military’s top brass, and Wagner men were seen flexing their muscles weeks ago in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. The 16 month-long war in Ukraine has exposed the fault-lines in the Russian military, and posed riddles of legitimacy for Putin. Not much is known whether this rebellion is to fix the fox in the Russian establishment or a tug of war between elements loyal to Putin. But in any eventuality, the entire region is in a flux and its outcome will have grave ramifications for the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.
This impasse will surely see Western interference and meddling in Russian affairs. The need of the hour is to tame down the volatility, and ensure that business is as usual in Moscow. Any mischief on the part of the US and its allies to play with fire in Russia will prove to be suicidal for global peace.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 25th, 2023.
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