Wagner Group Chief Likely Thought Odds Were Not In His Favor Before Ordering Troops To Turn Around

Experts say that the Wagner Group leader probably thought the odds were against him in continuing to march towards Moscow, before ordering his troops to turn back.

Yevgeny Prgozhin, the chief of the Wagner Group, said that on Saturday he had ordered his troops not to continue towards Moscow but to return to Ukraine to “avoid any bloodshed.”

Dan Hoffman, former CIA station chief Dan Hoffman said on Fox News Digital that he believed Prigozhin had ordered his troops backtrack after realizing that his chances of success were not good if they reached Moscow.

Hoffman said: “I don’t think Prigozhin ever intended to go to Moscow. I doubt he did.

Hoffman, in the process of defending Prigozhin, said that Prigozhin had made himself “Vladimir Putin’s enemy” and that “there’s no doubt about that.”

“That’s a consequence of everything.” Hoffman stated that you can’t take over the Rostov Military District, as he did, without becoming Vladimir Putin’s adversary.

Prigozhin ordered his troops to turn back after stating that they were only 120 miles away from Moscow.

After discussing the situation in Belarus with Putin, Alexander Lukashenko’s office announced that a deal was reached with Prigozhin.

Lukashenko’s office claimed that Prigozhin had agreed to order his soldiers to turn around as part of a proposed agreement with Wagner Group troops.

Charles Kupchan is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was also a senior director of European Affairs on the National Security Council under former President Obama. Charles told Fox News Digital he didn’t believe the situation in Ukraine would be much affected.

“I don’t think it will make a huge difference in terms of how the battle is played out on the field.” If civil war had broken out, and Putin would have needed to pull elements of the Ukrainian military from the frontlines to bring them into Russia to defend the regime then we’d obviously be in a completely different situation,” Kupchan said.

In a series on video and audio recordings made on Friday, Prigozhin scolded the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for ordering a missile strike on the field camps of the private military contractors where the group fights on behalf of Russia.

The Russian Defense Ministry has denied that the attack was carried out.