The Wagner ‘Coup’ Was Staged by Putin—and the West Fell for It

By now, every person has heard about the narrowly prevented coup in Russia: Past Friday evening, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, one particular of Putin’s most trusted allies and the commander of the notorious Russian mercinary Wagner Team, marched on Moscow in an evident coup d’etat, only to occur to a swift settlement with Vladimir Putin and decamp for Belarus. Whilst most commentators acknowledged that issues didn’t fairly insert up, the “expert” course happily concluded that at least it experienced weakened Putin in his war against Ukraine.

None seemed to comprehend the noticeable fact: The coup was staged, and fully faked wrong flag procedure.

Think about it: An army invades Russia, race ideal up to Moscow, and no just one receives damage? With just a number of thousand men, it accomplished what Hitler with nearly a million adult males was not ready to? And Putin retains his navy back? And then, with Moscow supposedly in just his grasp, Prigozhin decides, “Oh well, never ever mind” and heads to Belarus?

Prigozhin would have had to be an fool or suicidal to assume that with 8,000 adult males he could invade Moscow. Yet Prigozhin is very wise man, a juvenile delinquent turned convict, then scorching canine salesman, then CEO of a multi-million dollar catering enterprise serving the Kremlin, to finally commander of the world’s most formidable mercenary drive. It is utterly implausible that Prigozhin thought that he could just take on Rosgvardia, Russia’s National Guard, a 340,000-powerful domestic protection drive reporting specifically Putin.

And then there was the footage of Prigozhin sitting a bench in Rostov-on-Don, bantering amiably with Russia’s deputy minister of defense, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and deputy head of the Russian army intelligence, the GRU, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev. It was just way too chummy for a true rise up.

That Prigozhin is nonetheless alive, getting supposedly betrayed the Russian motherland, is inconceivable less than the rule of Putin, who famously stated in 2019 that “treason is the biggest crime on earth” and who hunts down traitors anyplace on the globe, including in the United States.

The “coup” was staged. The only concern is, why would Putin phase these an elaborate deception?

And the solution is politics. The Russian strongman is up for re-election on March 17, 2024. With no finish in sight to the Russia-Ukraine war, Putin has to influence the Russians of the need to bear even additional sacrifices in get to manage well known assistance for the war in Ukraine. Putin achieved this by desirable to two primordial fears of the Russian persons: invasion from the West and chaos.

In his address on Saturday, the capstone of this entire charade, Putin asserted that the West was driving Prigozhin mutiny, which he likened to the 1917 revolution. As Putin is aware, if you want to scare a Russian, convey to them they are going to go via the horror and disorder of the Bolshevik revolution yet again. These claims became the pretext for Putin to obtain much more power, not fewer. He declared a “counter-terrorism operation,” successfully marshal law, demanding extraordinary security steps, together with constant checking of citizens communications. And he reversed the rule that prohibited persons with a criminal document from signing up for the military services, which will permit more military services mobilization.

And the Russian media predictably cheered the pricey leader for preserving Mother Russia and “chasing away” the traitors.

Of training course, what Russians view as strength—Putin was in a position to squash a big armed mutiny—Western media and Biden’s “specialists” interpreted as weakness. And this, far too, is as Putin desires it. The notion in the West that he is weak and his military is incompetent indicates that the West will need not deliver so much aid to Ukraine, a important intention of Putin’s.

Putin is also reminding the world that the more time the Ukraine war carries on, the increased the opportunity for unpredictable outcomes, like, say, nuclear Armageddon. As Prigozhin’s troops rolled up the M4 freeway to Moscow, commentators fretted about the chaos and who was in management of Russia’s nukes.

There’s an full doctrine in the Russian army science called Reflexive Command, which is created to trick the enemy by serving him information he is probably to feel simply because of his pre-existing bias. Crew Biden is now there.

Meanwhile, the Wagner Group has utilised its trip to Moscow to land by itself in Belarus, which just gained a present of tactical nuclear weapons from Putin. This details to yet a further likely intention of the fake flag operation: opening a next entrance to Ukraine’s north though right threatening NATO‘s japanese flank with the weapons of Armageddon. This time, Putin is performing it with Russia’s most successful preventing pressure.

Rebekah Koffler is the president of Doctrine & Approach Consulting, a previous DIA intelligence officer, and the writer of  “Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Key Approach to Defeat The usa.” She also wrote the foreword for “Zelensky: The Unlikely Ukrainian Hero Who Defied Putin and United the Globe.“

The views expressed in this posting are the writer’s very own.