Putin separating Prigozhin from Wagner Group forces according to military strategist | ABC News

with criminal charges do you ever see a scenario in which he re-enters Russia or re-enters Russia with any responsibilities or authority well it's hard to foresee that and we know Putin's promises really aren't worth um you know keeping quite frankly really does that but you know Russia is a pretty mysterious place to us and you just never know how progosian might be able to use his

position in Belarus to rehabilitate himself did you long regard I think you did long regard him as something of a truth teller when it came to failed tactics and strategy by Russian forces deficiencies and lack of armaments and Munitions was he on the money well I think most of the time he was he's certainly more willing to report bad news than any of the Russian generals

are his motivations for that I think might be questionable it doesn't make him a good person he's clearly a thug who you know had his own soldiers killed with sledgehammers what happens to the up to 25 000 fighters who were part of the Wagner Force they're meant to fold into the Russian army but can that be assumed will there be leakage people who simply Melt Away

now well they have a couple of options that Putin gave them and and it's clear what Putin is doing now is trying to separate pregosian from his soldiers he's saying his soldiers were brave but pregosian is the corrupt one I think some will go to Belarus you know up to 10 000 potentially the more Elite ones but a large proportion at 25 000 are not elite

soldiers they're convicts and I think they won't have much choice but to be in the Russian army can you see that outfit performing the role that it did tip of the spear buckmut fighting long and hard and very lethal over a long period of time do they continue to play that role I think that's unlikely I think you know the cohesion of the Wagner group where

it used convicts and Elite troops as successive echelons has been broken now it'll be interesting to see what happens with these Elite troops if they go to Belarus I think that might be a base for them to go to places like Africa or and Beyond which is a real concern to see these people flooding into Africa so what is the risk now from Vladimir Putin's point

of view that he tries to counter the negatives of the last four or five days and that he doubles down on the offensive against Ukraine you know to prove look nothing to see here we are getting on with the job does he do that well he's got three big problems firstly his narrative for why he went to war has been compromised by pregosian in the video

last week so that that's a big concern for Putin the second one is the brittleness of the Russian system that's been exposed by the road run that the Wagner group did on the way to Moscow that won't be forgotten soon and I'm sure that they'll be changing their systems and their forces to address that and the third one is just the interaction between military and private

military companies there will be a lack of trust there and that will impact on Battlefield operations there is a plan ultimately isn't there to have fewer of these private outfits might this accelerate their evaporation absolutely defense minister shoigu issued a direction not long ago about rolling them into the military which really was one of the precursors of pregosians actions over the weekend so I think we

will see an acceleration what about shoigu and General garasimov in is there any scenario under which that Vladimir Putin pushes them further away from his inner circle well it doesn't look like it at the moment indeed if he fired them now it looked like he was doing progosian's bidding so I don't think he's going to do that I mean garasimov has failed in so many ways

over the last year or two that if it was going to be fired he would have been by now he's very loyal to Putin and at the moment that loyalty will be even more valued by the president of Russia and now are you completely convinced I think most western analysts are by the strenuous denials of the U.S that it had no involvement in fomenting any of

the trouble that we saw over the weekend do you agree with that and is it at all possible that ukrainians might have played a role in in flipping progosian in the way that he was I think in both cases it's unlikely certainly in the U.S sense I mean it doesn't need to do this it can and just watch on and not get in the way of

pregosian and garasimov the ukrainians might be different I mean they're the chief of their intelligence is very clever very Machiavellian and would be interesting to see if he had a role in this you know that's a 50 50 call in my mind but the ukrainians know the Russians better than anyone else so if anyone was going to do it it would be then I'm not saying

they did that no I know wouldn't that be a fascinating campaign if that was ever established in someone's Memoirs long after the war I expect finally Mick back here in Canberra I know you've made a lot of comments about the latest military donation package coming from Australia do you think more broadly as you step back from the specifics of that announcement could it be an early

indicator of a loss of Western appetite in the broad for maintaining donations of the likes we saw through the first 12 months I think there'll be some who might see it that way I think in Australia since this is an early indicator of the underfunding of defense that we've seen out of this gov government so far I mean the DSR and the latest budget really didn't

give them any more money and with inflation they have less so what's happened is the Department of Defense and said well you're not giving us any more money we're just going to give you what we can afford to give you now the defense minister is the boss here not the not the CDF not the secretary and I think he needs to impose some control on them

and say listen I want better options for the packages to support Ukraine what we've just done isn't good enough and what how do you interpret the the options that were put up to Richard miles why in other words Mike top browse have been as conservative as they appear to have been yeah I think could serve as very polite word for it risk adverse is probably a

better term for it I mean we should State up front the ukrainians are very grateful for every bit of assistance that's provided so no one's suggesting they're not but at the end of the day what we've provided here is some cast off old Special Forces vehicles and trucks some old ammunition from guns that we haven't had for a decade and we've seen at heart a lack

of imagination about the kind of assistance that Australia might provide as the 13th richest country in the world and one whose agricultural mining Industries have done very well since the beginning of this invasion