US Institution: Wagner Army Still a Threat to Putin You Should Know About The New Threads Meta App

US experts say Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Army continues to pose a potential threat to Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin and his power apparatus. “Putin continues to allow Wagner and Prigozhin to operate in Russia and may pose a threat to his regime,” an analysis by the US Institute for War Studies ISW found on Saturday night (local time) in Washington. Even two weeks after the short-lived Wagner Uprising with probably 25,000 mercenaries against the Russian military leadership, Prigozhin and the commanders were able to move freely in Russia.

According to the ISW experts, Putin is either remarkably confident in Prigozhin’s pledged loyalty or is incapable of taking action against the Wagner forces. The Kremlin chief had promised Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries impunity after they surprisingly put an end to the uprising. The president offered the mercenaries to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense to retreat home or to neighboring Belarus.

In Minsk, ruler Alexander Lukashenko brokered the end of the uprising and offered Prigozhin army bases. According to Lukashenko’s latest information, neither Prigozhin nor the troops have settled there yet. The ISW experts also referred to statements by a Wagner commander that the troops were currently on vacation until August. According to commander Anton Elizarov, battle name Lotos, the Kremlin could also try to control the mercenaries operating in Africa and the Middle East.

The ISW experts said that the reorganization of the Wagner army and its transfer to Belarus could not be clear until the autumn. The exact arrangements between Putin and his former confidante Prigozhin and other consequences of the Wagner uprising, which soon ended, also remained unclear. “But Ukraine has already benefited from the uprising and can still benefit from it,” the ISW analysis said. Wagner was once Russia’s most effective combat unit in Ukraine, but is unlikely to play a role in Kiev’s ongoing counter-offensive. Moscow’s warfare capabilities could also be permanently weakened. (sda/dpa)