The rebellion initiated by the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was largely theater and could now serve Russian President Vladimir Putin as leverage in his attempts to pressure Belarusian dictator Lukashenko into joining Russia’s war in Ukraine, retired Polish General Leon Komornicki has claimed.
In an interview with Polish Radio, Komornicki said that he suspects Prigozhin’s decision to hold the Russian city of Rostov and march on Moscow was not his own doing and that the Kremlin was involved. The benefit of the outcome of this short spat is that the Wagner group will be based in Belarus, a country that Putin wants to draw into the war in Ukraine.
The retired Polish general believes that Putin no longer cares about his reputation either at home or abroad. His aim is to continue to hold power and win the war in Ukraine. Komornicki believes that Prigozhin is a creation of Russian security services, an ex-convict who owes everything he has to the Kremlin.
The events in Russia over the weekend reminded many decision-makers in Poland of the Yanayev putsch, which some claim was a provocation staged by KGB officers to help former Russian President Boris Yeltsin seize power. What followed was a decade of chaos as the KGB, the military, and the fossil fuel lobbies struggled for power. Yeltsin finally resigned, with then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin coming to power as president in 2000.
Many commentators in Poland see this weekend’s events as a humiliation for Vladimir Putin and evidence that power may be draining away from him. Some have said that the events were reminiscent of coups in Africa when dictators negotiate with warlords after fighting breaks out and neighboring states get caught up in the fallout.
However, the Wagner group going to Belarus is potentially a problem for the eastern flank of NATO and, of course, Poland, which fears that Belarus will be tempted to escalate the illegal migrant crisis on the border.
