Wagner Group coup attempt may be beginning of end for Putin and war on Ukraine

Although the Wagner Group's attempted coup of Russia ultimately ended less than 24 hours after it began, it may signal the beginning of the end for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war on Ukraine, according to American Enterprise Institute's senior fellow Dalibor Rohac in a New York Post op-ed.

The Wagner Group took over two major Russian cities, Rostov and Voronezh and was headed to Moscow when Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko brokered a deal for the group's leader Yevgeny Prigozhin to go to Belarus and escape arrest for the attempt.

Prigozhin has been verbally attacking Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov -- respectively Russia’s defense minister and chief of the general staff -- for a year now and blamed them for bombing a Wagner Group camp earlier in the week.

He commands 25,000 mercenary soldiers who initially worked for Putin but turned against him and had been fighting with Ukraine.

If Putin doesn't take Prigozhin out, Rohac said, he will look weak and will lose his grip on power in the near future.

Certainly, we have seen Putin take out his supposed enemies for far less.