How Wagner’s short-lived mutiny could shape the direction of Russia’s war in Ukraine

Barranco said that once an army loses confidence in its leadership, morale falls through the floor — and the will to fight often goes with it.

Describing Wagner as what had been Russia’s most effective unit in Ukraine, Barranco said the mercenary group will almost certainly be disbanded and it was not yet clear whether its fighters will be absorbed into the Russian army.

Tony Brenton, former British ambassador to Russia, agreed that the Wagner mercenary group had been the most effective component of Russia’s military in Ukraine to date.

“The fact that, apparently, Prigozhin is now out of [the war] and maybe Wagner is also out of it will weaken Russia’s performance on the battlefield,” Brenton told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” on Monday.

Ultimately, Barranco said the recent turn of events is likely to provide Ukraine’s military leadership with something of an opportunity after more than 16 months of fighting. He said the best chance for a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive would be to seek to force Russian forces back from their 600 miles of layered fighting positions in the country.

“It is unlikely even the most audacious among the Ukrainian military leadership ever envisioned launching an attack on Russia’s Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, where Russia’s war in Ukraine is being run, but that is precisely what the Wagner Group’s sudden rebellion has done,” Barranco said.

A former ally of Russia’s long-time president and a man known as “Putin’s chef,” Prigozhin said via Telegram on Saturday that he was prepared to go “all the way” against Russia’s military and rejected Putin’s core justification for invading Ukraine in Feb. 2022.

In return, Putin vowed to crush what he described as an armed mutiny, accusing Prigozhin of “treason” in a televised address.

Asked whether this latest episode could fuel concern over the security of Moscow’s nuclear arsenal, Brenton said that the likelihood of nuclear weapons being deployed in Ukraine was “pretty close to zero.”

“Don’t worry, I think the likelihood of that still remains very low,” Brenton said. “I don’t see the level of political instability in Russia as anything like at the level where real civil war [or] a real breakout of order that you start worrying about nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands.”

However, Brenton noted that Putin has previously said he may be willing to resort to using nuclear weapons and this prospect could come to the fore if Russia’s full-scale invasion goes existentially wrong.

“It isn’t going existentially wrong yet. If it does, I think there is a danger of that,” Brenton said. “Let’s hope that we don’t end up in that situation.”