Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a decisive move to reassert his authority in the wake of an attempted rebellion by a private military contractor, the Wagner Group, which had refused to follow orders in June. On Saturday, the Russian leader signed a decree requiring all individuals engaged in military activities or assisting the military in Ukraine to take an oath of allegiance to the Russian state. The oath includes the promise to follow orders from military commanders.
The decree follows the plane crash in that killed the leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who had resisted military control. The crash led the group’s subunit Rusich to suspend operations and one of its founders, Yan Petrovsky, being arrested in Finland for visa-related violations and faces an extradition request to Ukraine.
This move is the latest in a series of actions taken by Putin to secure his military operations abroad and uneasy control over the mercenaries. Natia Seskuria of the Royal United Services Institute was reported by BBC as saying “Putin wants to have tighter control over Wagner to make sure he won’t face another crisis in the future.”
Given that the decree is in place, Putin can now validate and track those who are willing to take up arms for the Kremlin. Whether or not he intends to keep the State allegiance oath in effect remains to be seen, however it is clear that this move was designed to remind the Wagner Group who is in charge.
With information from BBC
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