The Wagner Group’s failed uprising attempt on Saturday reveals a complete lack of unity within the Russian military.
Although the Wagner Group’s operation in Russia ended in a retreat on Saturday, it nonetheless indicated a certain decline in Moscow’s armed forces, which could not really counter the Wagner fighters. That’s the most striking thing about last Saturday’s episode. The Wagner Group fighters, fully armed and visibly ready for battle: at least one command plane and up to six Russian military helicopters were shot down by these men.
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In a few hours they managed to take Rostov-sur-le-Don, the seat of the Russian Army’s Southern Command, and advanced with weapons almost 800 km towards Moscow without really being prevented or intercepted. The Rosgvardia, a kind of Praetorian Guard of the Putin regime created precisely to ward off possible armed coups in the country, did not exist at all.
“Atomization”
It must be said that the Russian army as a whole has suffered such casualties in Ukraine for a year and a half, with estimates of around 200,000 killed or wounded. In short, she’s just a shadow of herself.
“Specifically, the Russian state has an obligation to mobilize all the means and resources at its disposal within the country itself,” notes Vincent Tourret, a specialist on the Russian army and researcher at the Strategic Research Foundation. “Since its budget is no longer sufficient to feed the Russian troops, it has started to regionalize funding,” the researcher continues. With “all the territorial battalions set up in such a region, the private groups financed by such an oligarch, one comes to an atomization of the Russian armed forces”.
“The regular army remains first among the other armed forces in Russia, but it can no longer subordinate itself to all these forces, or at least we are questioning its subordination.”
Vincent Tourret, Russian Army Specialist
at franceinfo
Wagner participated in this atomization of Moscow’s armed forces, but it was one of the most battle-hardened and experienced forces sorely missed on the ground today.