The Telegraph: Kremlin Lost Due To Major Mistake

The mercenaries rebelled.

On November 27, Syrian rebels launched an offensive against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. It ended on December 8 with the capture of Damascus and the overthrow of the regime. This event revealed the weakness of the Syrian army: the regime's aviation was defeated, and the ground forces crumbled, writes The Telegraph.

The rapid onslaught of the opposition has also highlighted Russia's underappreciated problems. Although Russian troops supported the Assad regime, they did not intervene actively when the opposition seized cities one after another.

It was not a choice for Russia's ruler, Vladimir Putin - he relied on the Wagner Group, a private military company that became Moscow's main ground force in Syria.

However, dependence on mercenaries doomed both the group and the Syrian regime.

This is a lesson for all governments: mercenaries are not a reliable public policy tool. The Wagner Group, created in 2014 by Yevgeny Prigozhin, became famous after the annexation of Crimea and intervention in Syria. Its irregular forces allowed Moscow to avoid direct responsibility for its actions.

But motivated by income, the Wagnerites demanded a share of Syria's oil revenues to save the Assad regime. This strengthened the owner of the PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, but initiated internal conflicts.

In 2023, when Russia's war in Ukraine escalated, the Wagner Group took part in the battles. The mercenaries won a Pyrrhic victory in Bakhmut, which led to great losses and discontent. In June 2023, the mercenaries rebelled, occupied Rostov-on-Don and moved to Moscow. Putin granted them amnesty, but soon Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash, which virtually eliminated the group.

When the Assad regime was again under threat and the Russian army was mired in Ukraine, Moscow's commercial intervention forces were in a state of collapse. After all, any state that relies on mercenaries, as Russia did between 2014 and 2023, risks facing a fiasco.

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