Ahead of the mutiny, steps were taken to boost security at the Kremlin, but Putin was uncertain how to respond to a warlord critical to many global operations.
LONDON — When Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, launched his attempted mutiny on the morning of June 24, Vladimir Putin was paralyzed and unable to act decisively, according to Ukrainian and other security officials in Europe. No orders were issued for most of the day, the officials said.
Without any clear orders, local military and security chiefs took the decision not to try to stop the heavily armed Wagner troops, the security officials said. The disarray in the Kremlin also reflects a deepening divide inside Russia’s security and military establishment over the conduct of the war in Ukraine, with many including in the upper reaches of the security services and military supporting Prigozhin’s drive to oust Russia’s top military leadership, the European security officials said.“Some supported Prigozhin and the idea that the leadership needs to be cleaned up, that the fish is rotting from the head,” one of these officials said.
Members of the Russian elite said the division over the conduct of the war and its handling by the Russian military leadership, will continue, despite a public relations drive by the Kremlin to demonstrate Putin is in control and the start of a campaign to purge the ranks of the Russian military of critics and Prigozhin’s supporters among Russian ultranationalists.
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