Another 'Special Military Operation'?

An advertising screen promoting private mercenary group Wagner sits on a building in Moscow on April 17, 2023. - The slogan reads “Together we will win!”.  Natalia Kolesnikova | AFP | Getty Images

"[His Wagner troops would] punish [Russian military leadership for having] destroyed many tens of thousands of lives of Russian soldiers."

"The evil that the military leadership of the country bears must be stopped. I ask no one to resist. Everyone who will try to put up a resistance ... We will consider it a threat and destroy it immediately, including any roadblocks that get in our way, any aircraft that we see over our heads."

"I ask everyone to remain calm and not succumb to provocations, stay in their homes. It is advisable not to go outside along the route of our route."

"We will deal with those who destroy Russian soldiers and return to the front. Justice in the troops will be restored, and after that - justice for all of Russia."

Mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin

 

"On June 23, 2023, the Investigation Department of the FSB of Russia legally and reasonably initiated a criminal case against E.V. Prigozhin under Article 279 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, on the fact of organizing an armed rebellion."

"His actions [launching an “armed rebellion] will be given a proper legal assessment. This crime is punishable by imprisonment for a term of 12 to 20 years."

Russian prosecutor general

 

"Prigozhin’s statements and actions amount to calls for the start of an armed civil conflict on Russian territory and are a ‘stab in the back’ for Russian servicemen fighting pro-fascist Ukrainian forces."

"We call on PMC fighters not to make irreparable mistakes, to stop any forceful actions against the Russian people, not to carry out Prigozhin’s criminal and treacherous orders, to take measures to detain him."

FSB, via Russian state media RIA Novosti.

The entrance of the “PMC Wagner Centre,” associated with the founder of the Wagner private military group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, during the official opening of the office block on National Unity Day, in St. Petersburg.   Olga Maltseva | Afp | Getty Images

Vladimir Putin's closest advisers seem comfortable with the unthinkable. Their advice to the Russian President for ending the 'special military operation' otherwise known as war, is for the controlled battlefield use of small nuclear weapons to bring a quick end to the Ukrainian resistance to Russian violence against it. That, they state, will eliminate Ukraine and give Moscow its opportunity to reap what it has sown, but not in the traditional sense of that proverb. In so doing, a wider/global thermonuclear war can be avoided, they reason.  

Russia's war on Ukraine has not gone its way. The feared and vaunted Russian army has failed to live up to its fearsome reputation. Russia has lost an inordinate number of commanding officers. Tens of thousands of servicemen have died in a war many had no appetite for, while following orders, while others displayed a measure of inhumanity toward those whose country they were looting that surpassed the kind of brutality that war often engenders when the restraints of civilization are loosened and the beast in some men surfaces.

Russia's generals have been challenged time and again by the Wagner mercenary group's chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has accused them of failing to deliver the necessary supplies and arms to the group embroiled in combat. Prigozhin, once a staunch ally of Putin, now accuses him and his minister of defense, of deluding Russians into the belief that Ukraine presented a direct threat to Russia, and that the den of 'fascists' governing Ukraine must be destroyed to save Russia from any further threats emanating from that source.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (R) attend a ceremony, marking the Day of Remembrance and Sorrow, June 22, 2023 in Moscow, Russia. Getty Images

 

 Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has issued a warning that Russian forces were in preparation for a "terrorist act" at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the giant complex that is Europe's largest atomic power station. Ukrainian "intelligence has received information that Russia is considering the scenario of a terrorist act at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant -- a terrorist act with the release of radiation", Zelenskyy said in a video address to his nation. "They have prepared everything for this. Radiation knows no borders", he warned.

Typically, the response from Dmitry Peskov, the much-heard-from Kremlin spokesman was to reject the accusation: "Zelenskyy's words that Russia is allegedly preparing an act of terrorism at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant are another lie". It is a truth, however, that there are growing concerns over the Zaporizhzhia plant's security, since the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine impacts water levels in the nuclear station's cooling pond.

In eastern and southern Ukraine fighting continues, with Russian officials accusing Kyiv of carrying out a missile strike on a bridge that links the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson to Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. According to the Kremlin-appointed governor of Kherson region of the Russian-occupied portion, Ukrainian forces hit the bridge with British-made Storm Shadow missiles. "Missile damage to the bridges that connect the Crimea and the Kherson region is another completely senseless action carried out by the Kyiv regime in orders from London", governor Vladimir Saldo said. "This will not affect the course of the special operation in any way -- there are other land routes to the Crimea."

 

The body of a Russian soldier is shown near a destroyed Russian tank near the front line in the newly liberated village of Storozheve, in Ukraine's Donetsk region, on June 14. (Oleksandr Ratushniak/Reuters)

News out of Russia and Ukraine is in a startling new transition period. One that does not entirely negate the possibility that Russia could deploy small, tactical battlefield nuclear devices for maximum effect in deciding a conflict that Russia is abysmally short otherwise of taking the commanding lead in. The insurrection that is being spoken of by Wagner, and the potential for a coup should other arms of the legitimate Russian military wish to take vengeance on a government that sent them unprepared into battle and has overseen the loss of tens of thousands on both the Russian and Ukraine side could gain momentum.

It's hard to believe that a mercenary group that can boast of 25,000 fighting men could prevail against a mighty national army of over a million in arms, the fifth largest standing army in the world.Yet if the Wagner threats are not hollow and the mercenary group which has had foreign fighting experience and has proven itself a more efficient (and brutal) force than most of the Russian military come to actual blows, the diversion will allow Ukraine the opportunity to take advantage of attention turned elsewhere that sees Moscow defending itself on two fronts. 

 

It's not too much to ask for.

Putin is shown on a screen during the broadcast of a plenary session at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, in St. Petersburg, Russia, on June 16. Whether Putin and his top generals would press the nuclear button remains a hotly debated issue, with no consensus in the West. (Yevgeny Biyatov/Reuters)