BY PAUL T HORGAN
I do not have a TV Licence so I did not see the newscaster at the BBC gently reminding viewers that the M4 motorway up which Wagner commander Yevgeny Prigozhin was advancing with 25,000 battle-hardened veterans was in fact the road from Rostov to Moscow, and not the one that runs from Cardiff to London. Prigozhin made good distance along the M4, bypassing major conurbations as he did so, and the only military action seems to have been the shooting down of two attack helicopters and a transport plane that all got too close to the column.
It made sense for Putin not to send forces to challenge Prigozhin’s progress to the Russian capital. Any formation he sent to block the Wagner leader’s path would not have been as combat-experienced as Prigozhin has been able to assemble, and would probably have been defeated, which would have damaged Putin far worse than just him clearing the way. However, Prigozhin’s 25,000 troops were never enough to take Moscow. Prigozhin may have been gambling on a battle on the motorway which, when he was victorious, would have sealed Putin’s fate. He may have also expected other military formations to defect to his side, which never happened.
Actually, Prigozhin might have made a mistake in going for Moscow from Rostov. The Black Sea town is only really known for being one of the locations of battles between Hitler and Stalin’s forces as Soviet troops cleared the region on the way to liberate Crimea from German occupation. The same cannot be said for Volgograd, which is considerably closer to Rostov than Moscow. Volgograd, of course, used to be known as Stalingrad, and had Prigozhin managed to take that city with the same level of ease with which he had taken Rostov and Voronezh from Putin, succeeding where Hitler failed, then the loss of prestige would have been fatal for the Kremlin dictator. This would have been a humiliation that it would have been impossible for Putin to ever live down. Of course the situation on the ground is different from that on a map, so it may have been easier to drive to Moscow than to Russia’s most iconic city. But still . . .
So there was to be a stalemate before the gates of Moscow. It seems neither side actually wanted a battle, and the intercession of Belarus dictator Lukashenko as mediator led to what passes for an amicable solution in Putin’s Russia. It is difficult to determine what Prigozhin actually gained from the deal apart from his life and that of his men. It is also impossible to believe that neither Putin or Lukashenko will not renege on the deal once Prigozhin’s guard is down. Putin has a strong line in not-so-concealed assassinations as the numerous deceased Russian oligarchs, their associates and their relatives who have died in suspicious circumstances in the last 18 months would attest had they been still living.
Lukashenko’s position is even more perilous than Putin’s. He is the Mussolini of this drama, having thrown in his lot with Putin when it seemed that Russia was going to win with a lightning strike using overwhelming force.
He is now finding himself and his country attached to a pariah state, and Belarus is effectively a co-belligerent by allowing her land to be used to concentrate and stage Russian forces. Ukrainian victory may result in Lukashenko’s overthrow, as it would be impossible for the Ukrainian government to work with a Moscow-aligned neighbour on its northern border. Putin may have foreseen this which is why he has now stationed tactical nuclear weapons on Belarus soil. However it may not need an invasion by a well-equipped Ukrainian army to topple Lukashenko when there may be paramilitaries in Belarus who could be suitably motivated and supplied to do the job. And this may explain why Prigozhin is moving there, perhaps with thousands of Wagner troops in tow: they will be able to prop up a dictator that backed the wrong side that is currently losing.
Churchill said that Russia was “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”. We are only able to see parts of the enigma at present, and so indications of the nature of the mystery it contains, and even the actual riddle, may have to be left to the next time there is a regime change in the Kremlin and the archives are eventually reopened. Like in 1991, Putin’s demise could happen very quickly, but the collapse of the USSR caught sovietologists by surprise, and so the only thing that is actually clear is that there are further surprises in store. Possibly.
Paul T Horgan worked in the IT Sector. He lives in Berkshire.