Ukraine responds to Wagner mutiny in Russia with caution, hope
Ukraine’s top military expert has said that Kyiv has to make a “strategic, principal decision” on how to benefit from the unfolding turmoil in Russia.
One such move could be an order to invade western Russia to bypass massive defence installations on the 1,000-kilometre-long (620-mile-long) front line in eastern and southern Ukraine, according to Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko.“Those who make unorthodox decisions and implement them will succeed,” the former deputy chief of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces told Al Jazeera, adding that it was time to strike Russian forces in the back.
Such a plan looked like a “fairy tale” just a day ago, but the panic and disarray in Russia as troops of the Wagner private military contractor march on Moscow may provide Kyiv with a perfect opportunity to deliver the least expected blow, he said.
Ukraine’s Western backers will, however, inevitably step in to dissuade Kyiv from such decisions to avoid Moscow’s use of nuclear weapons, Romanenko added.
“Of course, our allies will meddle, will try to influence it somehow, in the ‘let’s-not-let-something-bad-happen’ way, to avoid escalation, the use of the weapons of mass destruction,” he said.
“Those who make unorthodox decisions and implement them will succeed,” the former deputy chief of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces told Al Jazeera, adding that it was time to strike Russian forces in the back.
Such a plan looked like a “fairy tale” just a day ago, but the panic and disarray in Russia as troops of the Wagner private military contractor march on Moscow may provide Kyiv with a perfect opportunity to deliver the least expected blow, he said.
Ukraine’s Western backers will, however, inevitably step in to dissuade Kyiv from such decisions to avoid Moscow’s use of nuclear weapons, Romanenko added.
“Of course, our allies will meddle, will try to influence it somehow, in the ‘let’s-not-let-something-bad-happen’ way, to avoid escalation, the use of the weapons of mass destruction,” he said.On Saturday, RVC head urged its supporters to “get ready”.
The group’s head, Denis Nikitin, wrote on RVC’s Telegram channel that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin emerged from the “processes of rot and decay” in Russia.
“And what we have is an ambitious patriot, popular among people and servicemen, who has his own private army; the population demoralised by the prolonged bloody war and an incoherent government. Let’s get ready!” Nikitin wrote.
‘Russia’s weakness is obvious’
While the top brass in Kyiv distanced themselves from the RVC’s incursions, Prigozhin’s rebellion caught them by surprise.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, “Russia’s weakness is obvious” and that the longer Moscow keeps its troops and mercenaries in Ukraine, the more chaos it would invite back home.Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, tweeted, “The next 48 hours will define the new status of Russia. Either a full-fledged Civil War, or a negotiated Transit of Power, or a temporary respite before the next phase of the downfall of the Putin regime.”
“All potential players are now choosing which side they are on. A deafening ‘elite’ silence is in Russia so far,” he wrote.Will history repeat itself?
Russia has already experienced a war that turned into a quagmire and showed how disorganised, demoralised and badly supplied the army was. Squads of servicemen rioted and marched home, triggering popular unrest and the government’s fall, a bloody civil war and the emergence of a totalitarian dictatorship.
This is not a prediction of what may or may not happen in Russia next, but it is what took place more than a century ago, when dispirited tsarist troops left the World War I front lines to flock back to Russia. Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in 1917 after the Bolshevik Revolution, which paved the way for the Communist takeover.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recalled the fear of “another 1917” in his national address on Saturday.
His Ukrainian counterpart also referred to the fateful year.‘Ukraine will suffer greatly’
Average Ukrainians were far less optimistic about Russia’s possible disintegration as it may trigger the exodus of millions of refugees and the use of nuclear weapons.
“This is happening again, and Ukraine will suffer greatly,” Andriy Lokshin, who serves in the “territorial defence” volunteer militia in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera.
“We don’t need another Wedding in Malinovka,” he said, referring to the 1967 musical describing life in a Ukrainian village during the 1918-20 civil war in the former Russian empire.
