Russia President Vladimir Putin was reportedly paralyzed and dumfounded — unable to act decisively in the face of Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin's attempted rebellion, despite warnings well beforehand.
On June 24, when Prigozhin's mutinous march to Moscow began, Putin issued no orders for most of the day, the Washington Post reported, citing unnamed Ukrainian and European security officials.
According to the Post, Putin was warned by the Russian security services at least two or three days ahead about Prigozhin's preparation for a possible coup. Steps were even taken to boost security at strategic facilities, including the Kremlin, where staffing in the presidential guard was bumped up and more weapons were handed out, the Post reported.
"Putin had time to take the decision to liquidate [the rebellion] and arrest the organizers," one unnamed European security official told the Post. "Then when it began to happen, there was paralysis on all levels. . . . There was absolute dismay and confusion. For a long time, they did not know how to react."
The stunning account lines up with CIA Director William Burns' comments at the Aspen Security Forum that Putin and the Russian leadership "appeared to be adrift" — and exposes Putin's fear of going up against a renegade warlord supported by many in Russia's security establishment, the Post reported.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told The Post its information was "nonsense" and shared "by people who have zero information."
The lack of orders from the Kremlin's top command left local officials to decide for themselves how to act as Prigozhin's Wagner troops pushed toward Moscow — and many local military and security chiefs took the decision not to try to stop the heavily armed Wagner troops, the Post noted.
"Russia is a country of mafia rules. And Putin made an unforgivable mistake," a senior Moscow financier with ties to the Russian intelligence services told the Post. "He lost his reputation as the toughest man in town."
Vladimir Osechkin, an exiled human rights activist who has interviewed several former Wagner fighters, told the Post the mercenary group had become a formidable power under Prigozhin.
He "worked for more than 20 years for Putin's team. He did a lot for their interests in a whole series of countries. He has a huge amount of information" about them, Osechkin told the Post.
"They created a monster for themselves," one European security official told the Post.
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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