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By Aleks Phillips
U.S. News Reporter
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Russian President Vladimir Putin will "feel a tremendous need to reassert authority" after a rebellion staged by the Wagner Group reached halfway to Moscow before it was called off, a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer said on Saturday.
Speaking on NewsNation, Hal Kempfer, now CEO of Global Risk Intelligence and Planning, warned that the Russian leader "could be very dangerous" as he seeks to regain his grip on power.
In a matter of hours, Wagner Group units were able to capture military sites in Rostov-on-Don in Russia on Saturday before advancing north towards the Russian capital, prompting the nation's military to hastily prepare defensive measures. Wagner Group's leader Yevgeny Prigozhin declared war against the Russian Ministry of Defense on Friday after the Russian military allegedly carried out an attack against and killed some of his troops who were stationed in Ukraine.
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Experts and commentators have viewed the mutiny as a public attack on Putin's authority, marking the first time Putin has been directly challenged over his country's military failures in Ukraine.
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Following a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Prigozhin, once a Putin ally, agreed to leave Russia and ordered his men to return to their bases in Ukraine in exchange for not facing criminal charges over the short-lived rebellion.
Even though it appears to have abated for now, for many the rebellion laid bare the fragility of Russia's military control and the heightened tensions between its military leadership and the dominant private force.
"He took a couple of major cities," Kempfer said of Prigozhin. "Rostov-on-Don, which is the southern region [military] headquarters—that is not an unsubstantial place to take. That is their major military headquarters for operations in Ukraine."
With the Russian president being viewed as humiliated, some expected him to "lash out" instead of negotiate a settlement. However, Kempfer, along with others, believes that a violent reaction could come soon.
"Assuming he comes back to Moscow, he's going to feel a tremendous need to reassert authority, to reassert at least the impression that he's in control, and that could be very dangerous," Kempfer said. "A wounded animal can be much more dangerous. He may feel the need to compensate."
It is unclear whether Putin is currently in Moscow or whether he left the capital. His airplane was spotted on a radar tracker flying northwest on Saturday, but his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied the claims, saying he had remained at the Kremlin.
Meanwhile, Tracy Walder, a former CIA and FBI special agent turned national security analyst, recently told NewsNation: "I am concerned that Putin is going to become more violent, more aggressive and rule with even more of an iron fist than he really has in the past."
Newsweek contacted the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email for comment on Sunday.
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