According to the US Secretary of State, it is still too early to talk about the future of the mercenaries, but the uprising has exposed Russian “rifts”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday (June 25, 2023) that the Wagner Group uprising against the Russian government was the “latest defeat” for the country’s President Vladimir Putin. The statements were made in an interview with NBC News’ Meet The Press.
“It’s too early to tell (whether the Wagner group will be dismantled)” […] It can take weeks and even months. This only creates another problem for Putin. “This is just the latest chapter in the book of defeats that Putin has written for himself and Russia,” he said.
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For Blinken, the mercenary team’s mutiny presented a “direct challenge” to Putin’s authority and showed that more “rifts” were developing in Russia. “I think it was no secret to many people for several months that these tensions were rising. […] So that (the rebellion) was a ‘coming storm,'” he said.
“What we have seen is extraordinary. Think with me: 16 months ago, Russian troops stood on the doorstep of Kiev, Ukraine, believing they would take the city in a matter of days and wipe the country off the map as an independent nation. What we saw now was that Russia had to defend its capital Moscow from the mercenaries it created,” he said.
However, according to the US Secretary of State, the country does not want to speculate about the outcome of the Wagner Group uprising and new information should become available in the next few days. “We want to avoid speculation. We want to focus on the facts and keep the focus on Ukraine,” he said.
THE WAGNER GROUP REBELLION
O Power360 created an infographic with the main events of the Wagner Group uprising against the Russian government. Here is below:
WAGNER GROUP
In January 2023, the US classified the Wagner Group as a “transnational criminal organization”. The statement was made by John Kirby, Strategic Communications Coordinator at the National Security Council. According to the American, about 50,000 mercenaries would be on the battlefield, 10,000 of them hired and 40,000 Russian prisoners.
Founded in 2014 by Lt. Col. Dmitry Utkin, the Wagner Group is the main mercenary organization involved in military operations aligned with Putin’s interests. The faction rose to prominence that same year for supporting Russianbacked separatist forces in Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula. In 2015, Yevgeny Prigozhin became the leader of the paramilitary community.
The name Wagner was chosen because that would be the nickname of Dmitry Utkin. According to the New York Times, Utkin was an admirer of Adolf Hitler, whose favorite musicians included the German composer Richard Wagner (18131883).
The Russian constitution prohibits the activity of mercenary groups in the country, but there are loopholes in the legislation that allow this type of organization to operate. Russian state companies are allowed to have private armed security forces, which allows mercenaries to operate legally and in an organized manner.
The Wagner Group acts as Putin’s private army, able to expand its area of operations to other continents without directly involving the country’s official armed forces. The paramilitaries have already been deployed in several African countries, including Libya, Sudan, Mali and Madagascar. The group has also worked in Syria to help the regime of President Bashar alAssad, an ally of Putin.
In response to the Russian President’s statement, Prigozhin commented on the group’s involvement on the African continent. He explained that he remains in contact with the Russian government to intervene in these countries: “When we were fighting in Africa, they told us that we needed Africa and then they dropped it because they stole all the aid funds,” explained he.
In connection with the war with Ukraine, the Wagner group was distinguished by the fact that it fought on the front lines in the main battles. The mercenaries were the main Russian attacking force in the city of Bakhmut, the scene of the bloodiest skirmish of the war.
The US Treasury released a report in January 2023 detailing the Wagner Group’s global performance. According to the document, the paramilitaries receive support from companies such as Russia’s Terra Tech, which produces satellite images. According to the US body, the group would also receive help from Chinese companies.