Putin Emerges From Coup Attempt Stronger Than Ever

Over the weekend of June 23-25, the world was mesmerized by news from Russia of an attempted coup.

Here’s the background: In addition to regular armed forces, Russia has several private armies. These are composed of paid mercenaries and released prisoners who work for private companies. The companies in turn sign contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) to carry out combat and paramilitary missions around the world.

The largest such private army with over 250,000 troops is the Wagner Group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former caterer who built a business supplying the Russian Army with food into a billion-dollar private army. Wagner is supplied with weapons and ammunition by the MoD and has operations throughout Africa and the Middle East. Its largest presence by far is in Ukraine.

Wagner infantry mercenaries were critical in Russia’s victory in the ten-month battle of Bakhmut that resulted in over 50,000 Ukrainians killed or wounded. After Bakhmut, Wagner forces were moved behind the front lines for rest and resupply.

Suddenly, Prigozhin went rouge. He released a video claiming that the Russian war in Ukraine was started under false pretenses and expressing sympathy for the Ukrainian side. He then occupied the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and surrounded Russia military headquarters there.

His behavior became even more bizarre as he led a convoy of about 5,000 troops and vehicles including armor on a highway to Moscow. He claimed the convoy was intended to oust the Russian Defense Minister and the head of the Russian military General Staff.

Before much violence occurred, the president of Belarus (a Russian ally) negotiated a stand-down agreement under which Prigozhin agreed to exile in Belarus and the Wagner forces were granted amnesty with a choice either to go home or join the regular military. The crisis was over within 48 hours and there was no violence, except for some aircraft reportedly downed by Prigozhin’s convoy.

Not one single element of the Russian government, military, church, population or media joined with Prigozhin. We’re reciting this history because it’s completely different from what Western media reported.

The New York Times, Washington Post, NBC, Economist and many other pro-Ukrainian outlets reported breathlessly how the coup was the “end of Putin” and that Russian society was about to be plunged into turmoil. It was also easy to conclude that Ukraine would now win the war with so much chaos inside Russia.

As explained in this article, none of this hysteria was true. These media outlets have been lying to Americans about the war since it began. The truth is that Putin emerged stronger than ever from the coup and the Ukrainian offensive is failing on all fronts.

The coup attempt is a good case study in how Western media pushes a narrative promoted by the U.S. State Department and CIA and how Americans are fed a steady stream of lies about Ukraine. Russia is winning and Putin’s position is secure. The only danger is that the U.S. will escalate further as the Ukrainian effort begins to crumble.

Corporate leaders and institutional fiduciaries looking to incorporate state of the art predictive analytics to their risk mitigation and strategic analysis should click the link to learn more about Raven Predictive Analytics®.