In Francis Ford Coppola’s seminal Vietnam War epic, Apocalypse Now, Air Cavalry Colonel Kilgore, flies into battle out of the sun to the sound of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, enough to extract shock and awe from the inhabitants of a soon to be decimated village. Kilgore’s primary purpose for the attack, besides confronting the enemy, is to secure a beachhead with a good point break where he can send his champion surfer-cum-soldier to catch a few tubes even while under enemy fire. “Charlie don’t surf” says Kilgore, who then goes on to wax wistfully about the smell of napalm in the morning. In one dramatic scene the Director not only weaponises Wagner, but turns the peaceful act of riding waves into another element of that mythologised war.
Coppola wasn’t the first to weaponise Wagner – The Ride of the Valkyries itself is about fallen warriors being taken to Valhalla in preparation for Ragnarok, the apocalyptic battle to end all battles. Coppola also isn’t the last to use the German composer’s name in a martial context. Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) takes it to another level, beyond cinema, into the realms of mythology brought to life through merciless trench warfare at a level not seen since World War One.
Wagner PMC came to fame, or infamy, during the epic battle of Bakhmut, also known as the Meat-Grinder for the ferocity of fighting and the huge loss of life from both Ukrainians and Russians. The leader of Wagner is one Yevgeny Prigozhin, a long time friend of Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin was once a hotdog seller who spent some time in prison, became an Oligarch through catering and other means, and along with ex-military officer Dmitry Utkin set up Wagner PMC as a mercenary force, made up mostly of convicts offered release in return for their service as cannon fodder. Wagner PMC can be thought of as either a private army or a security contractor who can be hired out to perform associated tasks, such as fighting to the death for 8 months to capture a city.
Private military companies are not unusual, many countries employ them, most famously the USA’s Blackwater contractors who gained notoriety after four of their members were killed by Iraqi ‘insurgents’, triggering the bloody battles of Fallujah. Even innocuous (controversial) household names like G4S are considered PMCs, so Wagner isn’t just a Russian anomaly.
Why Wagner?
Co-founder and military mastermind of the group, Dmitry Utkin, has a penchant for Germanic mythology and as a military officer carried the call sign Wagner. The Wagnerites are sometimes called the Musicians, though the music they make is anything but melodic. According to American ex-marine, ex-weapons inspector and Russia expert, Scott Ritter, Utkin is the military mastermind if you like, but Prigozhin is the public face of the Group. Prigozhin has a face only his mother could love and what appears to be a ferocious approach to warfare, but he also had an axe to grind with the Russian military High Command who he claimed had under-supplied and under-supported the Group during its assault on Bakhmut. This was his reasoning for taking the Russian city of Rostov, shooting down a couple of Russian choppers and marching on Moscow – his own personal Ride of the Valkyries, which will at some point in the near future see him to Valhalla or whatever hell awaits him.
Western Media Orgasms
In a war so loaded with propaganda, misinformation, unknown outcomes, Slavic pride, historical precedents and apocalyptic tensions, the Wagner ‘Coup’ sent Western media into a paroxysm of reactionary joy at the prospect of the end game for Putin: “Russia on the Brink”, “Putin Humiliated”, “Panic on the streets of Moscow” and so on. The number of Musicians marching on Moscow were huge according to our News, it looked like a Civil War in the making. There was even reports of Putin fleeing Moscow by jet.
Post-coup Dysphoria
The excitement at the thought of Putin’s imminent end was barely thought through by Western Media, despite certain pundits warning that if a civil war was triggered, so too could a nuclear exchange, especially if the Ukrainians and Americans tried to take advantage of the mayhem and nukes fell into the wrong hands. Of course, our media never thinks it through; it publishes the most emotive headlines it can as quickly as the presses allow and seems to suffer no shame or comeback when their predictive headlines are contradicted – 24 hours after the Coup attempt became news, it was over. Wagner PMC was stood down and Prigozhin was sent into exile in Belarus. If I was a Fleet Street editor my headline would be something like Wagner WTF?
For me, a mere amateur keyboard warrior sitting in my armchair, making sense of what has taken place is of course impossible, and even after researching the event, the back story, and listening to some trusted pundits, I’m none the wiser. There are theories zapping around the Twittersphere such as it was all a distraction to move Wagner into Belarus as a precursor to invading Kiev (Kyiv). I listened to the first 10 minutes of Vladimir Putin’s speech and I got the impression that his old mate Prigozhin will one day be enjoying a novichok sandwich, while his Wagnerites are either being disbanded or absorbed into the regular Russian Army. Who knows. Scott Ritter reckons it has been an embarrassment for Putin, but that Vlad is a tough, canny leader and to write him off as quickly as our media does would be a huge mistake, given that he is apparently still quite popular in Russia, despite what we in the West think. Ritter also downplayed the Wagner march on Moscow, indicating that the number of soldiers involved were less than 5000 so they would have ultimately been no match for the Russian Military if push came to shove.
Refrain
According to the BBC, the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, is reported to have brokered the deal between Prigozhin and Putin, but who knows. I also listened to a clip of Lukashenko giving absolute hell to a BBC journalist who was interviewing him. Lukashenko is another strongman who appears to take no prisoners and he put the BBC guy in his place, scolding Western media for its lack of nuance and blatant propaganda. Whatever unfolds in the coming hours, days, weeks and months, it is not going to be pretty. I would expect our newspapers to be working overtime scrapping together front page distraction stories about Kate the Great Middleton-Windsor in a variety of new frocks, as light relief from what is rapidly turning into a 21st Century, real life ‘Ring Cycle’, the opera to end all operas.
Act II?
Aussie Mick's State of Play 