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The Wagner Group, mercenaries led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, revolted against the Kremlin over the weekend after its\xa0leader claimed\xa0the Russian military killed 2,000 of its fighters in Ukraine.\xa0\nVictoria Coates, a senior research fellow in international affairs and national security at The Heritage Foundation, explains that \u201cthe Wagner Group is essentially a private paramilitary group run by Prigozhin, who was actually imprisoned for corruption at the end of the Soviet Union and then somehow became [Russian President Vladimir] Putin\u2019s private chef, and they established a very close relationship.\u201d (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)\xa0\nCoates also weighs in on whether she thinks the rank-and-file members of the Russian military have lost confidence in Putin.\xa0\n\u201cWell, they\u2019ve certainly lost confidence in the top control of the ministry, particularly [Sergei] Shoigu, the minister of defense, who was never popular,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd in a way, Putin\u2019s kept him around because he isn\u2019t popular, and he doesn\u2019t threaten Putin\u2019s popularity, and he was an offset to Prigozhin who was an offset to Shoigu.\u201d\n\u201cSo, that kind of arrangement has worked for a while, but if there is a greater perception within Russia than we realize of how poorly the Ukraine war has gone, given the way it was sold as a three-day war, inevitable triumph, that obviously has not turned out to be the case, and the casualties have been horrific. And if that is starting to sink in, he might have another Afghanistan-style situation on his hands, and this could be a real emblem of that,\u201d Coates says.\xa0\nCoates joins today\u2019s episode of \u201cThe Daily Signal Podcast\u201d to further discuss the events that unfolded in Russia, and what they mean for Putin and his government.\n Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.