Colin P. Clarke, an expert on Wagner and the director of research at intelligence consultancy firm the Soufan Group, thinks, as usual with Kremlin affairs, it’s “incredibly hard to get an accurate read” on what is actually happening in the halls of the Kremlin, but there’s no doubt that “Putin has been weakened.”
“I’d caution those cheering for Putin’s immediate demise,” Clarke said. “State collapse or civil war in Russia would be bad for the world. Moreover, if Putin is pushed out, his successor could very well be an identical figure; a hard-line nationalist that’s three decades younger and just as reckless as his predecessor.”
Though most top Western spy agencies have stayed silent over what exactly happened during the Prigozhin fiasco in an attempt to prevent Putin from claiming the mutiny was orchestrated by the West, that silence is also beginning to break.