Ukraine war news: coup or mutiny? Or civil war?

Reports that Putin has fled

Chris Johns

I write a (short) daily post for Powerscourt, a Strategic Communications company, based in London and Dublin. The idea is to summarise the news flow around the war in Ukraine - not so much the news that makes the front pages but more the stuff that we find interesting/relevant. News that may have not attracted the attention it deserves. Anyone interested in receiving the short email on a daily basis is welcome to contact Powerscourt here: insights@powerscourt-group.com.

Until Friday evening it was a ‘regular’ week, summarising relatively familiar news stories from various sources. Then Prigozhin staged his ‘mutiny’. The boss of Wagner, the Private Military Company (PMC), as various mercenary groups are called in Russia, is Yevgeny Prigozhin. He has featured heavily in my posts over the past year or so. He has become ever louder in his criticisms of Russia’s military (but not Putin), usually widely disseminated on Telegram and other social media outlets.

Wagner was largely responsible for the bloody battle for Bakhmut in Eastern Ukraine. The recent taking of Bakhmut came at the cost of thousands of lives on both sides. Once Bakhmut fell, Prigozhin stepped up his complaints about the Russian military, claiming it was keeping him short of munitions and was allowing Ukraine to creep back along the flanks of the ruined city after Wagner forces, rotated behind the front line, were replaced with regular army soldiers. His attacks have, until now, been focused on the Russian defence minister and a number of Army generals. His behaviour was consistent with the notion that Prigozhin fancies himself for high office.

Political ambition creates enemies and it seems likely that Prigozhin judged that Sergey Shoigu, the defence minister, was moving against him. Wagner’s 25,000 troops are, as we speak, making rapid progress towards Moscow, along the M4 motorway. We should all be grateful to the BBC who have just informed us that this is not the M4 that connects London with Cardiff.

Wagner have made more progress in hours than they did in months during the fight for Bakhmut. Their Friday night ‘mutiny’ was, according to some sources, timed to coincide with peak drunkenness of Russian regular soldiers.

This rate of advance could not have happened if the Russian Army was not, at the very least, standing aside. Perhaps some regulars are joining Wagner. Even more speculatively, Prigozhin would not have made his move if he didn’t have reason to believe that support from outside his PMC would be forthcoming.

Putin, in a shaky address, has called for the destruction of Wagner. Unconfirmed reports say Putin has left Moscow. Something called “Operation Fortress” is apparently under way in Moscow, designed to protect key security installations. Senior police officers are said to be debating which side to back.

Wagner is a nasty organisation. They have for years been up to their necks in the horrible wars in Africa and Syria. Mali, Mozambique, Sudan, Libya are just some of the places where they have committed atrocities. Every single member of Wagner, including - especially - its leader, is brutal and motivated solely by money and power.

All news-flow from the war is tightly controlled. Moscow usually lies - its briefings are always a riff on the theme that ‘the special military operation is going to plan, we destroyed another 200 Ukrainian tanks today’. Kyiv’s communications are more believable but they are short and relatively infrequent - they try to say as little as possible.

Nobody knows what Prigozhin is up to. His stated aims are unclear - he says he wants to “topple” Russia’s “incompetent, evil and corrupt” military leaders. Maybe he was cornered - perhaps Shoigu really is out to kill him. Maybe there is some agenda that is unfathomable.

It’s important to stress that nobody really knows anything. As others have said, we can only hope that somebody rational is in charge of the nukes. But there is an air of insanity about all of this.

“Russia’s slide to civil war”is an obvious headline with plenty of precedents. It’s a tad too early to make that call but we may be heading that way.

Whatever happens, the Kremlin’s war narrative has been exposed. Prigozhin has told the Russian people that the Putin’s pretext for war was a croc of lies. Hardly a motivational message for the conscripts on the front line glued to their social media feeds.

Now for the week’s other news from the day job, notable mainly for how quickly things have moved on:

Monday June 19th

Several sources have suggested that Ukraine’s counter offensive might enter an ‘operational pause’ for a week or so. This would allow tactics to be ‘tweaked’ in light of the lessons learned during the last few weeks. Such pauses are to be expected and tell us little about how the war is going. Predictions of a pause are, of course, not coming from the Ukrainians, who maintain strict secrecy about current and future intentions.

Paused or not, some fighting is reported to have taken place over the weekend. The Institute for the Study of War reports clashes in at least four locations and ‘limited’ Ukrainian territorial gains. The ISW reports Ukrainian forces entered the Western part of Pyatykhatky, a village in the Zaporizhia region. Al Jazeera quotes a Russian installed official saying that Ukraine has captured the whole village, but only at great cost to men and material.

Few analysts and commentators expect this basic picture to change in the months ahead. Indeed, there are plenty of predictions that fighting will continue for years, with limited territorial gains for either side. That said, everyone remembers the confident forecasts made by most experts that Kyiv would fall within days of the original invasion. Most analysts are suitably humble as a result. 

History shows that when wars last for at least a year, they tend to last many years more. Few analysts have much conviction about what happens when the fighting stops. Outright victory for either side is a low probability outcome. A ‘frozen’ conflict is mentioned a lot, one where there is no official end to the war, just a sort of armistice. Moldova and Korea are two contemporary examples.

The Wall St Journal recently carried interviews with three Russian soldiers currently being held as POWs in Ukraine. The men spoke of low morale, equipment shortages and fear of being shot for retreating. If they are returned home in any prisoner exchange they face extreme sanctions because they have broken the law that makes surrender illegal.

Tuesday June 20th

We mostly receive scrappy or partial bits of information about the war. Drawing conclusions, let alone inferences, can be tricky. But sometimes the evidence piles up in such a way that it becomes clear which side is telling the truth. Take, for example, the destruction of the Kakhovka dam. Satellite and other imagery points to an interior explosion rather than a missile strike. The Russians were in full control of the dam when the explosion. The flooded fields have subsequently permitted large numbers of Russian forces to be deployed elsewhere, particularly in the south where there is fierce fighting. When asked, Russia refused the UN access to the area, suggesting that there is something there that outside observers must not be allowed to see. The phrase ‘bang to rights’ comes to mind. 

Claims about remote controlled Russian ‘tank bombs’ have emerged on social media. Apparently, a T-54 tank is packed with high explosives and sent, by a remote operator, towards Ukrainian targets. Video has emerged of what looks like a Ukrainian soldier firing an anti-tank weapon that triggers a massive explosion when it hits the T-54. There is no official confirmation of these stories.

According to the US, China has given reassurances that it will not supply Russia with weapons. The Americans are still worried over the possibility that individual companies will sell critical components to Moscow. China has not made the obvious response: Western manufactured components, often American, regularly turn up in downed Russian missiles and other military ordinance.

President Macon said yesterday the Europe’s equivalent to the Patriot missile defence system has been delivered to Ukraine and is now operational. The SAMP/T system is also known as Mamba and is the result of a Franco-Italian joint venture. It is, according to Le Monde, Europe’s only defensive system capable of downing ballistic missiles.

Wednesday June 21st

Following the recent rows over the US debt ceiling we were left wondering if funding for Ukraine would become more difficult. The White House was quick to assure us that the deal reached between Joe Biden and the Republicans would not restrict the the flow of aid, including munitions. They may or may not have known it when these assurances were given, but the Pentagon has managed to find some money down the back of its sofa. A rather large sofa, it must be said. Thanks to an ‘accounting error’ there is suddenly $6 billion extra that can be spent. 

The problem lies with ways the Defence Department values its weapons stockpiles. Accountancy 101 is supposed to teach the many and varied techniques used to solve the tricky problem of inventory valuation but it seems that the Pentagon didn’t get the memo. In 2022, the value of weapons sent to Ukraine was overstated by $2.6 billion. In fiscal 2023 (so three months left to go), the overstatement has been $3.6 billion. By simple (now correct) arithmetic, the US has suddenly found $6.2 billion that does not need any kind of Congressional approval and does not alter Federal budget accounting.

Bloomberg quotes Defence Department spokesperson Sabrina Singh, who said yesterday “It’s just going to go back into the pot of money that we have allocated” for Ukraine, she said, adding that it doesn’t alter the total amount of support authorised by Congress.

The UK’s Ministry of Defence today notes a build up of Russian defences, far behind the front line, consistent with the forecast that Ukraine will, sooner or later, make a push for Crimea. The MoD says that fighting remains intense in several areas and that Russia has built a 9 kilometre defence barrier on the land bridge that connects Crimea with the Kherson region

Thursday June 22nd

Many observers, particularly Russian milbloggers, think the pace of Ukraine’s counter offensive has slowed in recent days. Ukraine itself has stated that the territory regained over the last seven days was less than that recaptured during the first week of the campaign. President Zelenskiy has acknowledged the ‘slower than desired’ progress, citing 200,000 square kilometres of Russian minefields as but one headwind.

Russia’s defensive fortifications have been dubbed the ‘Surovikin Line’, named after a General identified by the Institute for the Study of War as Sergei Surovikin. There are several zones that stretch up to 30 kilometres behind the front line. The defences allow for textbook tactics (‘doctrinally sound’ in the language of military types). A first line Russian forces is deployed to slow any Ukrainian advance while a second echelon waits behind a secondary defensive line. These methods have been observed in action repeatedly in recent days. 

The ISW argues that slow Ukrainian progress tells us little about what is likely to happen next. Ukraine has kept the bulk of its newly formed forces, Western trained and equipped, in reserve. While the Kremlin admits little by way of losses, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prighozin is publicly fretting that Russia’s manpower and equipment losses are substantial. Some Ukrainian sources have hinted that this is the point of the counter offensive so far: Russian men and equipment, not territory.

The ISW reports that Ukrainian defence industry conglomerate “Ukroboronprom”announced on June 20th that it has produced a new drone with a successfully tested 1000-km range. This may not be the first such announcement - some sources think the drones shot down over Moscow may have been related to these ‘new’ drones. Either way, Ukraine is clearly to determined to enhance its ability to strike far behind the front line. And into Russia itself - something it is allowed to do, provided it uses only domestically produced weapons. Albeit, probably, with a lot of external help.

Friday June 23rd

There is a uniform message coming from both sides and multiple sources: Ukraine’s counter offensive is proceeding slowly with early results that are disappointing. Unnamed Western officials briefed CNN to this effect yesterday. President Zelenskiy and other senior Ukrainians repeat the mantra ‘this is not a Hollywood movie’. While all of this may be the truth, perhaps even the whole truth, your correspondent is left wondering about the fog of war. There are one or two hints that the early focus of the Ukrainians has been to cause high rates of attrition in Russia’s men and materials, rather than to take large swathes of territory. Unconfirmed reports even suggest that over the last day or two Ukraine has once again figured out how to shoot down Russian aircraft.

The historian Max Hastings is one out of many prominent analysts pointing out that some Europe countries are long on rhetoric and very short on hard currency support for Ukraine - or their own defences. Particular scorn is reserved for Germany and  France, both of which are being slow to increase defence spending. Germany’s Chancellor is trying to ‘wriggle out’ of his promise to increase defence spending to 2% of GDP. Western European countries are doing little to replenish their much depleted stocks of munitions. One notable exception is Poland, a country pursuing hard-headed expansion of its defence structures, in full recognition of the likely length of the Ukraine war. Anyone who vests hope in Putin eventually being replaced is making a big mistake: whoever comes after him is likely to be much worse.

The UK’s Ministry of Defence today reports on some unusual defenders of Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol. Apart from the usual nets and booms placed in four layers at the harbour entrance, there are multiple pens of specially trained bottle nosed dolphins. The mammals are there to intercept enemy divers.

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