Could Yevgeny Prigozhin really have captured Moscow?

Last week’s Wagner revolt was less an attempted coup, more an impulsive demonstration that got out of hand

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Could Yevgeny Prigozhin have somehow captured Moscow last weekend? The emerging consensus – from experts and in western capitals – is probably not: the extraordinary rebellion of last Friday and Saturday was far less than an attempted coup, and more an impulsive demonstration that quickly got out of hand.

Consider the numbers involved in Saturday’s march on Moscow. The best estimates of rebel numbers are nothing like the 25,000 claimed by Prigozhin himself, probably closer to the 4,000 cited by the Institute of the Study of War. Even that is only a small part of Wagner’s total Ukraine force, generally estimated to be 15,000, the size of an army division.

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