The Ukrainian liberation of the village of Robotyne coincided with a threat by a group of Russian mercenaries to stop fighting on the Russian side on the front line, a possible signal of broader anti-Kremlin sentiment among those fighting for Moscow, France 24 TV reported, citing News.ro.

“The worker has been fired,” Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Hanna Malyar announced on August 28. Although a small village with a population of less than 500 before the war, it may be of little importance in itself as it is located along a strategic road. the road leading to Tokmak, a Russian-occupied road and rail hub.

From there, another road leads to the key city of Melitopol, which before Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 was known to Ukrainians as the “gateway” to the peninsula. Therefore, last week’s victory was an important step for Ukraine.

However, just a few days earlier, fighters from Rusichi, a small Russian neo-Nazi paramilitary group stationed on the front line in Robotin, had threatened to lay down their arms, a move that may have contributed to heavy Russian casualties.

The official reason for the threat to lay down arms, Rusici explained in an August 25 statement posted on Telegram, was that one of the group’s top commanders and one of its founding members, Ian Petrovski, had been detained in Finland and was at risk of extradition. Ukraine and the Russian government were not doing much for this.

Who founded this group of Russian mercenaries

Jan Petrovski, who holds dual Russian-Norwegian citizenship, co-founded Rusici in 2014 to take part in the Russian occupation of Donbas, and is believed to have worked under contract for the Wagner Group at one point. He faces various terrorism charges in Ukraine and faces 15 to 20 years in prison if extradited.

In a series of messages presented in the screenshots, the Anti-Fascist Europe research project shows that Russian members expressed their frustration with the treatment of them by the Russian authorities.

“If a country cannot protect its citizens, why should citizens protect their country?” one of them asks.

According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the group did operate near Robotyn in western Zaporizhzhya Oblast, which is considered “a critical section of the front line where the Russian military command probably cannot afford any units to rebel and refuse to carry out combat missions.”

Shortly after ISW published its analysis, Robotîne fell into the hands of Ukraine. There was no official confirmation – neither from Rusichi nor from the Russian Ministry of Defense – that the group’s fighters had stopped fighting, France 24 notes.

Russia will increasingly be unable to control paramilitary formations

Jeff Hawn, an expert on Russian military affairs at the Washington, D.C.-based New Lines Institute think tank, believes that Russian mercenaries assembling weapons at Robotin would be a plausible scenario.

“There is a strong possibility that the mercenaries laid down their weapons, ‘which probably contributed to the downfall of Robotîne,'” he said.

Russia has so few fighter jets that it cannot replace units that surrender, the expert said, adding that we probably won’t know “for years” what really happened.

Hone believes that the reason for the rebellion would most likely have less to do with the capture of the group’s leader than with a loss of motivation among Russian mercenaries in general, as well as with Moscow’s growing inability to keep them under control.

“These individuals are probably just looking for an excuse to get out,” he said, adding that the mercenaries “realize that Ukraine will not break and will simply surrender.”

Echoes of Prigozhin’s uprising at the front

The situation of the paramilitary formations was complicated by the attempted mutiny of the Wagner company in June and the death of its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin at the end of last month.

Under Prigozhin’s leadership, Hone explained, Wagner had long served as an organizer for other Russian paramilitary groups operating in Ukraine. Prigozhin also established a culture of paying his mercenaries well in dollars, a culture that spread to other armed forces fighting in Ukraine.

“Despite the fact that he had a reputation as a tough guy, a bully, Prigozhin was known for taking care of his people, paying them more and in foreign currency,” Jeff Hone explained.

However, after the group’s failed uprising – and Moscow’s subsequent attempts to disband the group – working conditions for Prigozhin’s “militia team” in Ukraine deteriorated.

“They’re probably being paid in rubles now — if they’re being paid at all,” Hone says. “Also, they probably won’t be supplied, as militia groups are at the bottom of priorities when it comes to Russia’s logistics, which are already completely overstretched,” the expert notes.

Before his death, Prigozhin complained for a long time that the Russian army did not provide his mercenaries with enough ammunition, he even threatened to withdraw his troops from the front line in the city of Bakhmut, where he fought.

Can Russian militias rise up against the Kremlin?

The death of Prigozhin and his right-hand man Dmitry Utkin in a plane crash on August 23 also destroyed an entire shadowy power structure built both on relationships and the ability to command “hooligans and criminals” who fought as mercenaries. .

“There is no one like Prigogine who has the desire or the ability to challenge the government right now,” Hone said. According to him, with the leader Wagner now out of sight, it will become even more difficult for Moscow to control about a dozen militia groups still in Ukraine.

It could be worse for Moscow, Hone warns, if they choose to defect.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if some of these people repent and suddenly join the Free Russian Legion (a Russian paramilitary group fighting on the side of Ukraine – no), especially if they are paid in dollars,” he said, referring to the group pro- Kyiv Russian militants who claimed to have carried out several attacks in Russia’s Belgorod region in recent months.

“I believe that the incident on Robotîne is significant and is a sign of other events,” the expert concluded.

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