On Saturday, most of us awoke to the information that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the previous convict, sizzling canine entrepreneur and caterer to the Kremlin, who based and leads the Wagner Group mercenaries, had taken over a Russian navy compound. His plan was to steer his column of troopers of fortune and armored weaponry to Moscow, forcing Vladimir Putin to do who-knows-what. It was a tragicomic echo of the human catastrophe that’s the Russian invasion of, and year-long struggle with, Ukraine.
The satirist and road artist Adrian Wilson despatched out an electronic mail with the headline “Fingers Crossed,” which contained the next picture:
I used to be able to run with the “mutiny” piece right this moment, when my eyes had been distracted by David Leonhardt’s summation of the newest loopy flip of occasions in The New York Instances:
“The Russian mercenaries who seemed to be mounting a coup try stopped their advance on Moscow, and Putin’s authorities introduced that their chief—Yevgeny Prigozhin, the pinnacle of Wagner, a personal navy firm—would flee to Belarus in alternate for amnesty. The Wagner troops who participated within the rebellion would additionally obtain amnesty, and different Wagner troops can be given the choice of becoming a member of the Russian navy or demobilizing, a Kremlin spokesman mentioned.”
Prigozhin questioned Putin’s authentic motives for the struggle—”denazification”—and accused the Russian protection minister, Sergei Ok. Shoigu, of launching airstrikes on Wagner fighters.
“Prigozhin’s actions had been a surprising revolt,” added Leonhardt, “and the absence of punishment for him gave the impression to be a possible signal of weak point for Putin. He evidently lacks the navy energy or political consensus to arrest someone who began an armed mutiny towards him.”
