What to Make of the Wagner Mutiny?

Source: Russia’s Academy Award Winning Performance For Best Coup, Prigozhin Scores Best Actor.

Various theories are being advanced to explain the peculiar event of Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Russia’s private military company, Wagner Group, attempting, then abandoning, a military coup against Russian president Vladimir Putin. I am partial to the hypothesis offered in the source article.

The all-important context of the mutiny is Ukraine’s spring offensive. Had it succeeded in breaching one or more of Russia’s defensive positions in southern Donbas, Wagner’s mutiny would have seemed to all the world to be a viable effort at regime change in Moscow. But of course the offensive has been an utter failure. Ukraine’s best fighting units have been committing suicide at the very fringes of the Donbas line of defense.

I suspect that western political leaders never imagined Ukraine’s offensive would fail so completely as it has. I further suspect that western intelligence recruited Prigozhin to stage a coup at the precise moment of the first inevitable Ukrainian victory. Since no victory ever occurred, why did Prigozhin go through with his mutiny?

I think it is because Putin wanted him to. That is, Prigozhin informed his Russian handlers of his potential recruitment by western intelligence and Putin decided to use the plot to his advantage. When the spring offensive collapsed, Prigozhin’s mutiny still had to play out in order to expose Russia’s enemies within Russia and the scale of western political leaders’ incompetence.

That he was secretly complicit with Putin all along would explain why Prigozhin apparently faces no significant punishment for his actions.

The whole spectacle lasted only about 22 hours.