In the days since Yevgeny Prigozhin called off his “coup” and turned his column of Wagner Group fighters back from the road to Moscow, the experts have worked overtime to offer their explanations of the event and its baffling denouement: Was it shadow play, choreographed with Putin? Was it a genuine coup attempt, brought down by the failure of Russian military units to fall in line? Was it something else entirely?

There seem to be as many theories, or variations on the above themes, as there are pundits. Among the many unanswered questions, one stands out — why were Prigozhin and his closest circle of Wagner fighters offered protection in Belarus, and what will become of them in the weeks and months to come?

Many observers have suggested that, in fact, there is no future for Prigozhin and his men. The internet is rife with variations on a theme of: “Prigozhin the chef will need a very good food taster, should avoid upper story windows, and should never walk directly in front of a man carrying an umbrella.” Perhaps they are right. Vladimir Putin, after all, seemed genuinely furious and powerfully embarrassed, which would scarcely bode well for Prigozhin’s longevity. Fascinatingly, however, news reports indicate that the Wagner element that refused integration into the Russian army and followed Prigozhin into Belarus is now being offered the use of a military facility near Minsk, which already shows signs of being upgraded to suit their needs.

This hints strongly at a very different explanation of these recent events, one that accounts both for the strangeness of the “coup” and for the resettlement of Wagner in Belarus. To get at the heart of this, we need to reflect upon both the history of the Wagner Group and its recent use — some would say misuse — in the war in Ukraine. But to help our understanding, we might usefully also reflect on some historical precedent. Many observers wondered last weekend if we were witnessing an event with parallels to the Russian Revolution of 1917 or even the earlier failed revolt of 1905. Instead, I believe we should look to Flanders in the 1570s. (RELATED: Russia in Turmoil: Is It 1905 or 1917?)

I was a doctoral candidate back in 1975, and, while my dissertation research focused on Weimar-era Germany, there were distribution requirements that entailed the study of earlier periods as well. These often seemed a tedious distraction, but a course in military history led me to Geoffrey Parker’s The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road. In this remarkable work, Parker achieved the thing to which all good historians aspire — namely, he changed the way we think about something we thought we understood, and for the better. The Army of Flanders during the Eighty Years’ War between Spain and the Netherlands (and, variously, England, France, and others) was rightly regarded as the best infantry force of its era, one whose organization, discipline, and tactics revolutionized warfare. But it was also notoriously mutinous, staging some 40 mutinies between 1572 and 1609, often at strategically inopportune times.

Parker’s insight (one of many) was to relate the mutinies to the perennial problem Spain faced in paying the troops. In effect, the mutinies were an exercise in labor relations, a job action — a strike. And while sometimes the striking troops went off on a rampage (as in the case of the Sack of Antwerp, a monumentally savage massacre with profound implications for the outcome of the war), many of the mutinies were resolved through the resolution of straightforward grievances, typically pay and working conditions.

Think about this in relationship to the events leading up to the Wagner march last weekend. This was preceded by repeated complaints by Prigozhin: complaints of lack of support from the Russian military establishment, complaints that they had actually been assaulted, complaints that the professional heads of the Russian military had it in for Prigozhin and his fighters. This was a long-festering wound bursting into the open, one caused by the changing circumstances posed for Wagner by the Ukrainian war.

Wagner had its roots in the 2014 war in the eastern provinces of Ukraine, when Russian military personnel, many of them Spetsnaz and other elite special operators, donned anonymous tactical garb and became the notorious “little green men.” This initial cross-pollination played an important role in the emergence of Wagner as a PMC (private military contractor) that served abroad, notably in the Middle East and Africa, both as a tool of Kremlin foreign policy and as a wealth-generating machine for Prigozhin and, not incidentally, for the well-paid former special operators who formed its core cadre.

While not without hazard, these activities combined relatively low risk with very significant remuneration for those involved, and they also provided, so we’ve sometimes read, significant personal satisfaction for the members. Professional soldiers, after all, like to soldier, particularly in environments where they are not being pounded by artillery in unremittingly brutal urban combat — that, one might observe, becomes old very quickly.

And this is, of course, what the slugging match at Bakhmut became. Much has been made about how Prigozhin recruited the dregs of Russia’s prisons to plus up his forces and make them an important cog in the overall war effort in Ukraine. But the reputation earned by the Wagner Group as an effective military force — one reinforced by its performance at Bakhmut — isn’t something accomplished by a ragtag collection of ex-convicts, no matter how motivated by the various incentives, positive and negative, that Prigozhin and his officers created. Their performance could only come because they were welded together by a cadre of hardened Russian military professionals, men attracted to Wagner — as opposed to persisting in an army career — by the opportunity for well-rewarded adventure and a level of respect rarely afforded senior NCOs and junior officers in the Russian army.

The Bakhmut meat-grinder changed this dynamic. While it may have added to the reputation of Wagner as fighters, it inevitably meant serious casualties among the professional cadre as well as the convict base. These men could see the writing on the wall. Whatever the appeal to patriotism, this likely wasn’t what they’d signed up for. When this was compounded first by lack of logistical support and then, above all, by the forthcoming insistence that they be rolled back into the institutional Russian army, the future closed in around them. It also closed in around Prigozhin, whose wealth and influence were rapidly becoming wasting assets. Thus, the supposed “coup” came quickly to resemble the simpler mutiny, a “job action” not dissimilar to the ones enacted by those Spanish tercios in long-ago Flanders.

At the same time, and despite what Putin may have initially thought, the remaining core of Wagner retains a considerable value if repurposed to its original role as a deniable asset for overseas adventures. Resettling the group in Belarus, giving it a base of operations, allowing it to regroup for future operations — these are useful things. In returning Wagner to a small group of elite professionals, divesting it of the cannon fodder, this becomes a useful model for the group going forward. Where might it be used? That is what we should be worrying about. In Ukraine, to be sure, but not as common infantry, and overseas, wherever Russian interests demand. I use the term “Russian interest” — as opposed to “Putin’s interest” — deliberately.

I agree with those commentators who’ve concluded that the past weekend’s events have left Putin deeply wounded. The sharks, one suspects, are beginning to circle. I also agree that Prigozhin is not likely to be one of those sharks. He is deeply damaged goods, and the upper-story window surely beckons. But Wagner has a core of second-tier leaders who can carry it forward, even when Prigozhin is no longer around. And Putin’s successors are unlikely to be an improvement on him. Some among them will undoubtedly find a means of bending a revived Wagner to their purposes.

We’ve not seen the last of them.

James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counterterrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun as second career as a thriller writer. His 2022 novel, Letter of Reprisal, tells the tale of a desperate mission to destroy a Chinese bioweapon facility hidden in the heart of the central African conflict region.