Wagner Mutiny Rattles the Kremlin’s War in Ukraine

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin denied that he had any involvement in the paramilitary Wagner Group, despite European Union sanctions against him and an FBI bounty for his arrest. But as Prigozhin grew increasingly critical of the Kremlin’s tactics in Ukraine, he finally admitted last year that he was the leader of the group and attended funerals for Wagner mercenaries slain in combat. And on Saturday, Prigozhin’s transformation from a shadowy Kremlin ally to a public challenger to Russian President Vladimir Putin was complete: In a lightning mutiny, the Wagner Group stormed into Rostov-on-Don, a city of a million people in the north Caucasus, before an eleventh-hour diplomatic intervention from Belarus ended the saga. 

Prigozhin’s mutiny may be finished and his fate unclear (Russian officials claim he is now in Belarus and will give Wagner’s weapons back to Moscow), but experts believe the saga is far from over. In fact, they say, it shows underlying cracks in Putin’s regime that could further jeopardize the outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine as Kyiv’s counteroffensive intensifies. 

“This goes back to that dichotomy between stability and what is needed to win the war,” said Dara Massicot, a senior policy researcher at the Rand Corp. and a former Pentagon analyst focused on Russia’s military capabilities. “They need to mobilize. But again, the decision is being delayed for political reasons. We’re still seeing this dichotomy at play here at the senior leadership of Russia. They’re not correcting failure; they’re reinforcing failure.” 

To better understand the ripple effect that Prigozhin’s mutiny will have on the Kremlin and Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, Foreign Policy spoke to Massicot about the impact that the insurrection will have on Russian troop morale, the Wagner Group itself, and the palace intrigue in official Moscow. The interview was conducted before Prigozhin reportedly landed in Belarus early Tuesday to take on his new job of training that country’s military. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Foreign Policy: How will Prigozhin’s mutiny impact the Russian war effort in Ukraine?

Dara Massicot: I was trying to observe if there was any functional break in command and control to the troops. I don’t think that there was. I didn’t get the sense that Rostov stopped functioning as the operational command and control center for the troops. I didn’t detect anything where units on the ground in Ukraine were unclear about who their command chain was.

In terms of the larger question of how this affects morale, that remains to be seen. I think it’s going to exacerbate previous trends. 

FP: And Wagner’s footprint in Ukraine had already been much more limited.

DM: Yes. They were rotating out of Bakhmut, which apparently gave them the time to gather elsewhere in eastern Ukraine for this “March of Justice.” In terms of the operational impact that’s going to be felt, Russia needs all hands on deck, frankly, in terms of experienced fighters. They are going to be short several thousand at this point. It remains to be seen what is going to happen to these fighters. I can’t imagine that they’re going to want to suddenly sign up with the Ministry of Defense or just pretend everything’s fine. Maybe some will be attracted by the financial incentives, but it really remains to be seen.  

FP: Prigozhin had a long-established rivalry with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russian military chief Valery Gerasimov (who’s also serving as Russia’s top commander in Ukraine). How will that change?

DM: What I saw this weekend in Rostov in particular makes me think that there’s not a lot of enthusiasm for Shoigu and Gerasimov, even within his own chain. They respect the rank and the authorities that these men hold, but I don’t think they respect them as wartime leaders.

I think their radio silence—no one seems to know what they were doing this weekend—and the video posted of Shoigu is also unusual. There’s a distinction between what needs to be done for the war effort to go better, which is replacing these two individuals because they’ve shown incompetence in their wartime leadership, versus what makes Putin feel secure in the immediate circle around him. He feels secure around Shoigu and Gerasimov in that they’re not going to participate in a coup against him. We’re still in the same place with this tension between what is needed for the war effort versus what is needed for Putin’s sense of stability. And I don’t know which direction this is going to go just yet. I just don’t think this is resolved.

FP: Ukraine has shown an eagerness to stage military attacks into Russia. With Russia so vulnerable to this mutiny, is there an opportunity for Kyiv to intensify those attacks?

DM: There’s two issues at play. Rosgvardia, their [Russian] National Guard, they don’t really train against armed insurrections. They train against people protesting in the streets. So they don’t have the correct tools for something like what they were potentially facing. 

And the [Russian] army is, and I can’t underscore this enough, most of the fighting army, most of the professional army, is in Ukraine right now. The only people left at these garrisons, without equipment in many cases—it’s all in Ukraine—they’re conscripts. So who are the authorities going to send to interdict them? If you take a look at these barracks, [they’re] depleted of equipment right now.  

FP: What does this say about Russia’s manpower shortages that we’ve seen in Ukraine?

DM: They are facing manpower shortages, which, I think, is why Shoigu is trying to fold all these mercenaries under his control. One, it makes sense operationally just to have functional control over them. Two, it also helps to boost his stats in terms of numbers of people. They are trying to recruit people on a volunteer basis so that they don’t have to mobilize again. But I think, ultimately, they’re going to have to. They’re trying to get it down as small as they possibly can before they have to potentially call another round later this summer. The armored equipment, you know, the defense industry is producing double-digit numbers each month of armored equipment and [amphibious vehicles] and tanks. So they are able to slowly replenish. And it’s going to take them many years to recover from this, and they’ll never fully recover, to be frank, because they’re shredding a lot of that legacy Soviet equipment, too.

This goes back to that dichotomy between stability and what is needed to win the war. They need to mobilize. But again, the decision is being delayed for political reasons. We’re still seeing this dichotomy at play here at the senior leadership of Russia. They’re not correcting failure; they’re reinforcing failure. 

FP: Russia seems to be holding up against this Ukrainian counteroffensive better than it held against the eastern and southern offensives last year. Why?

DM: They’ve had going on eight months to prepare these defensive networks. It is hard for the Ukrainians to get through these minefields. And while they’re slowed and they’re stuck in these minefields, they are very vulnerable, and the Russians are attacking them. 

And as they get closer and closer to the lines and they’re having to come into close contact, and they’re actually getting into the trenches, the Ukrainians are performing better tactically. So the Russians have an incentive to keep them stuck where they are in the mines and not have them try to breach. And the Ukrainians have every incentive to push forward as long as they aren’t reinforcing failure, too.