When news first reached the British Government about the attempted coup against Vladimir Putin by the equally brutal Yevgney Prigozhin, the response could be summed up as: ‘Who the hell do we back?’
The immediate answer was – neither. As a senior Minister put it last night: ‘The West has to be extremely careful not to say anything which could give Putin the opportunity to portray Prigozhin as the puppet of the West. The truth is that we knew there were tensions between Putin and Prigozhin, but we didn’t know he was going to strike like this.’
As Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called world leaders yesterday, No 10 sources were optimistically saying that ‘it will be a couple of days before we know whether this is really serious or something which will just melt away as quickly as it started’.
But officials at the Ministry of Defence were less guarded. The prospect of Russia’s nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of a ruthless mercenary leader, who commands a private army of murderers and rapists and executes deserters with a sledgehammer, was terrifying.
Putin described the Wagner group’s actions as a ‘criminal adventuristic campaign’ that is ‘equivalent to armed mutiny’ earlier today
Yevgeny Prigozhin speaks inside the headquarters of the Russian southern military district in the city of Rostov-on-Don earlier today before he backed down
Read Related Also: Labour faces questions after MP Geraint Davies is suspended over ‘inappropriate behaviour’
Before yesterday’s surprise withdrawal, one key question being asked was whether Prigozhin would try to take Moscow by sheer force or whether his Wagner Group mercenaries were closing in on the city as part of a more sophisticated, long-term plan.
A senior source said: ‘This is obviously a profoundly serious moment for the Russian state. Since the time of the tsars, the focus of its security planning has always been to secure Moscow from attack.
‘But it is unclear whether Prigozhin has penetrated the ring of steel around Putin, and has the ability to slip that poisoned drink in front of him.’
Prigozhin – who had signalled his increasing confidence by mocking Putin as ‘grandpa’ in an act of unpunished impudence which baffled Western experts – has strong links with Russia’s Defence Ministry and its intelligence arm, the GRU.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called world leaders yesterday. He is pictured with US President Joe Biden in the White House in Washington, June 8, 2023
Western ministries are monitoring in particular whether the Wagner Group will be able to entice significant numbers of Russian soldiers to defect by promising to stop treating them as cannon fodder in Ukraine.
A civil war would be the first ever in a nuclear state, and the instability would shake a global economy only just starting to adapt to the impact of the Ukraine war. The senior Minister said: ‘This is very real. All we can do is try to help the small number of British citizens and diplomats to leave [Moscow]. Other than that, we are just watching and waiting like the rest of the world.’
