Many unanswered questions remain about an apparent revolt by a military unit fighting Ukraine for Russia, with many media reports describing it as an “insurrection” against Vladimir Putin.
Over the course of last weekend, a “mutiny” reportedly developed as Yevgeny Prigozhin led his “Wagner group” of mostly convicted criminals – inmates promised pardons if they fought for Russia against Ukraine.
Their trucks, weaponry and soldiers all took aim at Moscow after the group’s leaders complained Putin was not doing enough to assault Ukraine.
But then, just as suddenly, the rebellion vanished. Trucks and soldiers turned around and Putin, uncharacteristically, expressed no desire for significant punishment or retribution. Theories have proliferated among media and analysts.
But one of the more credible, yet alarming, analyses is coming from former Israeli Defense Force officer Amir Tsarfati, an Israeli Jew who became a Christian and now runs a popular Telegram channel and posts regularly on YouTube.
This video has silence for the first couple minutes:
The question he raises is whether Wagner now is “a nuclear power.”
Further, he wonders whether Putin knew of the “rebellion” and actually allowed it, so that the group would obtain nuclear weapons and possibly even use one, to which Putin would have a level of deniability claiming he had nothing to do with it.
Tsarfati observed, correctly, that it was “so strange and so weird” how the rebellion fizzled so quickly and completely.
“We were amazed that Putin actually allowed him [Prigozhin] to stay alive and to move to Belarus,” he explained.
Further, he noted, Putin appears to be in the process of replacing his defense minister, one of Prigozhin’s goals.
Tsarfati explained what he knows.
There’s a “very good possibility that the Wagner group today is holding tactical nuclear bombs because as they were advancing toward Moscow, they actually marched all through … Voronezh.”
The outskirts of that town, he explained, “is one of 80 installations where Russia is keeping their tactical nuclear weapons.”
He said the rebels “entered into that base with all of their trucks.”
“No one knows this moment how many tactical nuclear missile are missing,” he said.
Worse yet, he said, what if that group would decide to sell some of those armaments.
It seems they have something powerful, as “everybody’s afraid of them,” he said.
Or, he said, “Did Putin know about…this operation,” through which the Wagner group could deploy one, while Putin could tell the world, “It’s not me.”
He said the Russia term for such deception is “maskirovka.”
