Yesterday, on August 23, two Russian air defense missiles in the sky over Tver decapitated the leadership of one of the largest private armies in Russia
Yevgeny Prigozhin and a number of other high-ranking commanders of the Russian private military campaign Wagener were killed during a missile attack on a plane in Russian skies.
PMC Wagner and Yevgeny Prigozhin became widely known after the rebellion that happened exactly two months ago.
Then the fighters of PMC Wagner captured the largest city in the south of Russia, Rostov-on-Don, and set off to capture the Kremlin in marching columns.
During this march on Moscow, PMC fighters shot down several Russian planes and helicopters, which began to fire on Wagner columns.
As a result of the negotiations, the advance of the private army fighters to Moscow was stopped and the rebellion stopped
Everything was settled thanks to the leader of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko.
However, the fact that the second largest and most powerful private army came out of obedience to the Kremlin frightened the Russian authorities.
Two months later, a private army was beheaded in the sky over Tver
The Kremlin now faces the difficult task of neutralizing the fighters of the Wagner PMC.
After the process of liquidation of this private army is completed, the Russian leadership will face the task of liquidating another powerful private army based in Chechnya and subordinate to its leader Ramzan Kadyrov
All these processes are taking place in a difficult time of the most difficult Russian-Ukrainian war that the Kremlin unleashed on February 24, 2022.
The Russian leadership launched a war against Ukraine in the hope of conducting it in a special operation mode within a limited time frame.
However, having lost the opportunity to end the war in May-June 2022 with a peace treaty, Putin is now forced to fight in the mode of economic depletion
Disorder and vacillation in the ranks of private military armies of such magnitude as the PMC Wagner or, potentially, the Chechen personal army of Ramzan Kadyrov during the war are unacceptable.
However, unity of command in the power structures of Russia can be restored with a significant risk of destabilizing the situation inside the country.
The leader of the Wagnerites, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was popular among the Russian patriotic segments of the population.
It is possible that after the elimination of another sincere patriot of Russia Girkin-Strelkov from the media field, the Kremlin decided that it was possible to continue the cleansing and consolidation of society without any problems.
Recall that the patriot of Russia, despite the trail of war crimes, Girkin-Strelkov was imprisoned by the Russian leadership for criticizing the authorities.
According to Strelkov, the current leadership of the Kremlin is leading the country to a catastrophe similar to the tragedy of 1917.
Yevgeny Prigozhin partly agreed with Strelkov’s theses, and the same conviction in Putin’s wrong course led to the rebellion on June 23, 2023
Feeling threatened by independent private armies, the Kremlin will try to control the personal army of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
However, it will take less radical methods.
It is assumed that in addition to traditional assurances of loyalty to the Russian leadership and personally to Putin, the Kremlin will require other steps.
For example, in an ultimatum form, he will demand from the leader of Chechnya that his units switch from stabilizing the situation in the occupied territories to directly participating in hostilities on the front line.
Thus, the Kremlin will try to bleed Kadyrov’s private army in battles in Ukraine and thus protect itself from the possibility of another rebellion.
