WAGNER leader Yevgeny Prigozhin spent most of his 20s in the Soviet prison system, where he was exposed to the code of thieves.
What’s more, many of Wagner’s soldiers were recruited from jails.
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The Wagner Group turned on Russian president Vladimir Putin as a row over war boiled over Credit: EPA
A cornerstone of that code is you never back down and never forgive a slight. It is why this became personal.
Wagner has trained alongside GRU, the intelligence arm.
But because Wagner was so integrated, you had GRU and the regular military fighting alongside these guys.
What we don’t know is what the rest of the security forces will do.
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The reality is they hugely outnumber Wagner. On paper, there is no question who will win.
But if other soldiers are ready to defect, or just not willing to fire on Wagner, that is when Prigozhin becomes really dangerous.
So far, if one looks at when Prigozhin’s troops took over the city of Rostov-on-Don, the local garrison and local national guard — essentially a paramilitary security force — didn’t join Wagner, but didn’t oppose them either.
A lot of people are waiting to see if momentum begins to swing towards Prigozhin, or the Kremlin.
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When it does, everyone will join the winning side. So will there be any defections?
If people start to join Wagner, things will start to get very interesting indeed.
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Professor Mark Galeotti is the author of Putin’s Wars Credit: Supplied