Co Tyrone military intelligence expert: Wagner mutiny has left Putin a weaker man

​Philip Ingram made the comments to the News Letter in the wake of the bizarre attempted mutiny by Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Group, led by former Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Mr Ingram is a former colonel in British military intelligence who now runs Global Intelligence Insight, which provides geo-political analysis to private clients.

Russia controls a belt of land in the east of Ukraine, much of it in territory where ethnic Russians live, but there has been widespread amazement at how little Moscow’s forces have been able to advance since first invading Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

“What can we conclude from Prigozhin’s move?” he said.

“Putin has been weakened, as have the Russian military leadership.

"But we don’t have enough info to make a proper call as to who is supporting Prigozhin, and what other moves are likely to happen.

“The Wagner Group have a much greater influence than just in Ukraine; they are involved in operations in Syria, Libya, Central African Republic, Mali, Sudan, and Mozambique where – amongst other things – they control access to diamond and gold mines.

"These assets are for Putin and his inner oligarch circle as part of a wider corrupt criminal network.

“Prigozhin was critical of Shoigu, the defence minister, and Gerasimov, the overall commander of Russian operations in Ukraine, and has been calling for their removal for months.

"His ‘march for peace’ operation, driving to near Moscow, demanded a meeting with Shoigu and Gerasimov.

"However, I suspect as part of the ‘peace deal’[to call off the coup] their positions have been reviewed.

"It won’t affect the situation at the tactical level on the ground in Ukraine in the short term, but we could be seeing the start of lots of change in Russia and a potential threat to Putin’s power base.”

A coup by members of the Wagner Group – a private army with both close Kremlin links and ties to neo-Nazism – was aborted at the weekend, relieving the pressure on Vladimir Putin, at least for now.

Moscow had braced for the arrival of the Wagner forces by erecting checkpoints with armoured vehicles and troops on the city’s southern edge.

About 3,000 Chechen soldiers were pulled from fighting in Ukraine and rushed there early on Saturday, state television in Chechnya reported.

Crews dug up sections of roads to slow the march.

Wagner troops advanced to just 120 miles from Moscow, but its leadership then announced they would halt to avoid “shedding Russian blood”.

According to the UN, at least 8,000 civilians have died in the war so far.

It says there have been 19,324 casualties (6,910 killed and 12,414 injured) in territory controlled by the Ukrainian government, and 4,688 casualties (1,985 killed and 2,703 injured) in territory occupied by the Russian Federation.

Leaked US documents in April cited the following figures for military losses, which are much higher than civilian ones: between 189,500 and 223,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, and between 124,500 and 131,000 Ukrainian ones killed or wounded.