Attention to the Unseen

Michael Weiss and James Rushton report: Two days after the Wagner Group’s stunning, short-lived rebellion inside Russia seemingly ended in a deal that saw the mercenaries’ boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, fly to exile in Belarus, more questions than answers remain. According to Russian state media, all charges against those involved in the uprising have now been dropped. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who delivered a brief, combative speech Monday, called Wagner militants “patriots,” and said they were led by the nose into…

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The Washington Post reports: The aborted rebellion in Russia has brought unease to large swaths of Africa where leaders who have turned to the Wagner mercenary group to bolster their hold on power now face the prospect that the private paramilitary organization could be weakened or even dismantled, according to experts on the region as well as Western officials and analysts. The world’s attention has largely focused on the turbulence within Russia, where the aura of President Vladimir Putin is…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: The grainy footage announcing the insurrection appeared on the Telegram messaging site at 7:24 a.m.: Yevgeny Prigozhin had gathered two of Russia’s most senior commanders in the strategic city of Rostov-on-Don to humiliate them on camera and threaten to march his mercenary army to Moscow. “Our men die because you treat them like meat…no ammo, no plans,” said the founder of the Wagner Group private military company, flanked by masked fighters who had seized the…

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Anton Troianovski writes: President Vladimir V. Putin long styled himself as Russia’s guarantor of stability and the uncompromising protector of its statehood. This weekend, Russian stability was nowhere to be found, and neither was Mr. Putin, who after making a brief statement on Saturday morning vanished from sight during the most dramatic challenge to his authority in his 23-year reign. In his absence, he left stunned Russians wondering how the leader of a paramilitary group, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, could stage…

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Institute for the Study of War reports: The Kremlin now faces a deeply unstable equilibrium. The Lukashenko-negotiated deal is a short-term fix, not a long-term solution, and Prigozhin’s rebellion exposed severe weaknesses in the Kremlin and Russian MoD. Suggestions that Prigozhin’s rebellion, the Kremlin’s response, and Lukashenko’s mediation were all staged by the Kremlin are absurd. The imagery of Putin appearing on national television to call for the end of an armed rebellion and warning of a repeat of the…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: A day after Wagner’s mutiny showed the unexpected fragility of President Vladimir Putin’s regime, all the main players in Russia’s worst political crisis in decades stayed out of sight—leaving Russians, and the world, to wonder whether the drama was really over. Key unanswered questions include the future of Wagner’s 25,000 heavily armed troops, of the paramilitary group’s owner Yevgeny Prigozhin and of Russia’s military leadership, which failed to stop his rapid advance toward Moscow. The…

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David Remnick writes: When I asked [Mikhail] Zygar [former editor-in-chief of TV Rain] what was the most striking aspect of the uprising, he said, “Putin is weaker. I have the feeling he is not really running the country. Certainly, not the way he once did. He is still President, but all the different clans”—the factions within the government, the military, and, most important, the security services—“now have the feeling that ‘Russia after Putin’ is getting closer. Putin is still alive….

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Politico reports: President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday, a day after Russian mercenary forces reversed their plans to march on Moscow, Zelenskky said. The White House confirmed the call on Sunday afternoon. Zelenskyy and Biden discussed “the course of hostilities and the processes taking place in Russia,” Zelenskyy said in a post on Twitter. “The world must put pressure on Russia until international order is restored.” [Continue reading…] David Ignatius writes: The Biden administration’s response…

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The New York Times reports: American intelligence officials briefed senior military and administration officials on Wednesday that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the mercenary Wagner Group, was preparing to take military action against senior Russian defense officials, according to officials familiar with the matter. U.S. spy agencies had indications days earlier that Mr. Prigozhin was planning something and worked to refine that material into a finished assessment, officials said. The information shows that the United States was aware of impending…

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