President Putin knows the history of his country. She shows him that Yevgeny Prigozhin’s coup could turn into a catastrophe. Once before, an uprising in Russia was followed by war, destruction, the deaths of millions.
Whatever the mutinous Wagner boss Yevgeny Progoshin promises from his threatened “March of Justice” on Moscow, it’s hard to imagine that the mercenary leader would act alone. Prigozhin, a jail-hardened criminal and hardened schemer, may have hooked up with disaffected Russian officers before the uprising he just instigated. Many high-ranking Moscow uniforms will reject Putin’s amateurish war policy: the president is burning up the once vaunted Russian army in Ukraine.