The Week Ahead

I didn’t expect to be starting off my “Week Ahead” look with the distinct possibility that we have just seen the beginning of the end for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Yet here we are. Well, Soviet. Russia, Russia, Russia! Russia nearly tipped into outright civil war following a brazen mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the one-time caterer to and close associate of Putin, who grew to be the ruthless head of the mercenary Wagner Group. With their own forces decidedly lacking in experience and flexibility, the Russian military made the dubious choice of inviting Wagner to join the war effort in Ukraine. Wagner proceeded to lead the bloody, yet in many ways strategically pointless, siege of Bakhmut over the past months. There, its numbers, largely comprised of former prisoners forced at gunpoint to fight for their jailers, were badly decimated, by some reports with casualties in the high tens of thousands. The experience proved harrowing to Wagner, and Prigozhin angrily accused the Russian Ministry of Defense of starving his group of supplies and ammunition.

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