There is a great irony in all of this.
Do you remember Yevgeny Prigogine? A year ago, the leader of the Wagner mercenaries publicly criticized military chiefs. He accused high-ranking officials of incompetence and corruption and blamed them for failures on the Ukrainian battlefield. Prigozhin especially focused his anger on Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov. He demanded a replacement.
The public debate grew out of control and led to a 24-hour revolt. Wagner's warriors captured key military installations in southern Russia and began marching towards Moscow. This was an unprecedented challenge to the Kremlin's authority. But its main goal was to wipe out the country's top military dignitaries.
Failed. President Putin sided with the military leadership. Prigogine lost the power struggle against Generals Shoigu and Gerasimov. And not long after, he lost his life in a plane accident.
But a year later, a Kremlin-backed military purge began.
And this tells us about Vladimir Putin. The Russian president hates being pressured. If you order him to fire a minister or an army general, he will not agree on the spot. He won't tell you what to do.
That doesn't mean Putin won't act. At a time of his choosing.
What is not clear is how far this purge of the Russian military will go. How many high-ranking figures will end up in prison?
The former commander of the Russian 58th Army said that. Major General Ivan Popov was arrested this week on suspicion of large-scale fraud. Last year, he announced that he had been fired after complaining to military leaders about problems on the front lines in Ukraine.
