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The situation escalated Friday night. The mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin openly opposes the Russian military leadership. On his Telegram channel, he accuses Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of ordering missile strikes against his Wagner troops. Numerous fighters were killed. Prigozhin threatens to clean up – and gives his troops marching orders to Russia.

These immediately moved, Prigoshin speaks of 25,000 men under his command. The city of Rostov-on-Don is the target. “Anyone who tries to resist us will be seen as a threat and killed immediately,” Prigozhin announced.

Shoigu commanded the offensive operation against his men from Rostov, which is home to the military headquarters for the war in Ukraine. “He fled at 9 p.m. – as cowardly as a woman,” says Prigozhin.

However, the information cannot be independently confirmed at this time. The situation remains unclear. Many questions arise. An overview.

What happened before the coup?

The Wagner troops fight side by side with Russia in the war against Ukraine. Since when exactly have there been different statements. Shortly after the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, the United States Department of Defense reported that the Wagner group had been deployed to Ukraine; among others, Wagner’s assassination attempts on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj are attributed.

However, since the summer of 2022, the deployment of Prigozhin’s private army on behalf of the Russian military leadership has been an open secret. From September of the same year at the latest, the mercenary leader personally recruited prisoners in Russian penal camps for use in the Ukraine on behalf of the Wagner group. To do this, Prigozhin travels across Russia, and videos of him mobilizing fighters for Wagner continue to circulate.

When and why did it break?

As the Russian army’s losses in Ukraine become increasingly apparent, Prigozhin’s loyalty apparently wanes – and he openly opposes the leadership in the Kremlin. This is evident time and time again from his public statements, especially since the beginning of 2023.

When he and his mercenaries claimed the conquest of the Ukrainian town of Soledar in January, he praised himself above all, a great achievement by his private army rather than a success by the regular troops of the Russian army.

At the same time, the dependence on the mercenary leader has become increasingly apparent in recent months. He criticizes the military leadership around Defense Minister Shoigu – showing how much he needs their equipment. It is still unclear to what extent Prigozhin will fund the mercenaries, including training, logistics and armaments, and how much of the cost will be covered by the Russian Defense Ministry.

But in the spring of 2023, it turned out that the Wagner group was heavily dependent on the replenishment of military equipment from the stocks of the regular Russian army.

Prigozhin’s problem: Wagner has no war material production capacity of its own and is also dependent on the infrastructure of the Ministry of Defense – and its ammunition. Prigozhin thus commands a private army that is effectively paid for by the state and filled with Russian convicts. Even the son of Putin’s press secretary, Peskov, once fought for Wagner.

What happens if Prigozhin is stopped?

Two months ago, Yevgeny Prigozhin supported the Russian president. “Moscow is not our enemy,” said the Wagner boss when asked if he would soon turn his guns on the Kremlin. Now suddenly the turning point – and Russia’s immediate reaction. The secret service is investigating Prigozhin, denying his accusations and now wants to have him arrested for attempted armed insurrection. According to the prosecutor’s office, Prigozhin faces between 12 and 20 years in prison.

By marching to Moscow, Prigozhin may endanger himself. The Russian capital is considered a high-security zone. According to experts like t-online’s Stefan Meister, Putin will not allow Prigozhin to travel all the way to the center of power. So is “Putin’s cook” burning his fingers on his advance?

Why does Prigozhin turn against Putin?

The question is how spontaneous Prigozhin’s uprising is. Initial reports show how well-equipped its troops roam Russia, including anti-aircraft guns and other heavily armored vehicles. There is talk of miles of columns. Did the mercenary feel a good time to win the power struggle with the Russian leadership? After all, the Ukrainian counter-offensive is in its infancy and the withdrawal of Wagner’s troops means that Prigozhin is taking his men out of the line of fire.

Military expert Carlo Masala assessed Prigozchin’s advance as “long prepared” in a tweet. Due to its dimensions, he could not imagine Wagner acting “spontaneously”.

Prigozhin himself gives another reason for his coup. He wanted to put the “evil” in the military leadership. According to the Russian revolutionary, those who destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers should be punished. The ministry is keeping 2,000 bodies under lock and key to cover up the extent of the casualties. “There are 25,000 of us and we will find out why the country has plunged into chaos,” he says. Most of the army supports him. “This is not a military coup. This is a march for justice.”

What does Prigozhin want to achieve?

That is not quite clear yet. For the first time, Prigozhin clearly criticizes the reasons for the war, which the Kremlin has been repeating like a mantra for almost a year and a half. Now he says in a video that the Defense Ministry is trying to mislead Putin and the public about the reasons for the war. It is a lie that Ukraine is aggression and that it must attack Russia together with NATO. “The special operation was started for other reasons,” Prigozhin is sure.

“The war was necessary so that Shoigu could become a marshal and receive a second hero medal.” In addition, the Russian elite wanted to seize substantial possessions with the help of the war. “The war was not necessary to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine.” This isn’t the first time Prigozhin has targeted the country’s oligarchs: in the past he had called on them to donate their billions to upgrading the military.

Is Prigozhin’s team strong enough?

It is not exactly known how many mercenaries are in action. The US government estimates their number at 50,000 and has imposed sanctions on the group describing it as a “major transnational criminal organization”.

Four-fifths are prisoners, some of whom have been convicted of serious crimes. While Wagner used to be considered a special forces unit, equipped with former veterans of the Russian army and battle-tested through operations in Syria or Mali, among others, this may have changed as criminals were added to the squad.

Insiders from the military blog “Rucriminal.info” rate the current situation as very threatening. “Prigozhin is clearly not bluffing, they have at least 20,000 fighters. Many of them have a lot of experience. Unlike the Defense Department, decisions at Wagner are not made by a group of reporters at the top, but almost immediately. The forces deployed to defend Moscow are not enough to stop them.”

Can Russia win the war without Wagner?

From Putin’s point of view, this does not bode well for the war in Ukraine. If thousands of soldiers are actually withdrawn from the war zone, this could provide opportunities for the Ukrainian counter-offensive. Whether it leads to a critical turning point in the war remains to be seen. In addition to the balance of power in eastern Ukraine and the south of the country, another factor may be decisive: the situation within Russia.

If Russian forces are trapped in their own country, there will be a capacity shortage for Ukraine. «The privatization of military units, as with Prigozhin’s mercenary army, is now taking its revenge. The Russian state has partially lost its monopoly on the use of force,” Russia researcher Stefan Meister told t-online.

Does Prigozhin now have access to nuclear weapons?

The portal “Visegrád 24”, which specializes in Eastern Europe, reports on nuclear arsenals in the region occupied by Wagner. It is therefore the “southern military district”, which means, among other things, the region around Rostov. “Prigozhin could soon have nuclear weapons in his hands,” the report says.

What exactly this means for a possible military escalation is completely unclear. Putin had repeatedly threatened the West that Russia was a nuclear power and had an extensive arsenal of nuclear weapons; In any case, actual use is not possible.

Officially, three people in Russia have the nuclear briefcases with the codes they contain. They can use it to issue orders for strategic missiles, long-range bombers, or even nuclear submarines. As the irony behind Prigozhin’s current power struggle against the military leadership wants, these three men are President Putin, Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov and Defense Minister General Sergei Shoigu – the people with whom the Wagner boss is now at odds with his insurgency .