2023-06-26 07:51:00
Maurizio Stefanini 26 June 2023
One of the best known Italian military experts, il General Charles Jean he is also a connoisseur of Russia first hand. As he reminds us, «I have been several times to the Russian General Staff, especially to the Academy of the General Staff to give lectures or listen to lectures, and I got to know several Russian generals. And as president of the Soginthe Nuclear Plant Management Company, I was in charge of the Global Partnership for the program of dismantling the ex-Soviet nuclear missiles of the Northern Fleet, which were a kind of ecological bomb in the White and Barents Seas».
Putin evokes 1917, “when Russia was fighting the First World War, when victory was practically stolen from it”. Anchorman Vladimir Solovyev instead compared Wagner’s advance on Moscow to “Mussolini’s march on Rome”…
«Prigozhin had a lot of space from Putin. Most likely, because Wagner, as well as other private military companies in Russia, were being used by Putin to curb the army which most likely, at least in the upper ranks, is against the war in Ukraine and is against the conduct of the war by Putin. But Prigozhin has clearly gone to his head, and plans to become the champion of Russian nationalist radicalism himself. Exaggerating, because he and he clashed with the majority of the General Staff. Not all, because for example Prigozhin was supported by that general Surovikin who commanded in Ukraine and who has now become Gerasimov’s deputy, after having destroyed Aleppo. He supported it against the rather moderate strategy followed by the General Staff of the Russian Defense Ministry. Prigozhin thought he had grown strong, and as a result he moved from insults to even some demonstrative action against the military commands. That they fought back, that they’re definitely in control of the situation, and that they’re going to finish him off. However, whoever emerges enormously weakened in my opinion is Putin, who really looks like an idiot. Because first he relies on bandits like Prigozhin opposing the army which is instead one of the bases of power in Russia. I have indeed known the Russian generals, and I can guarantee that they are much less radical people than one might think. Gerasimov is definitely a level-headed person, and a very pragmatic one. For example, I have always maintained that both Shoigu and Gerasimov, both in possession of the double key to nuclear weapons, if Putin decided to use them, they would not carry out the order. I mean, they would refuse to do anything crazy. There is probably now this purge of private military companies, which by the way is not just Wagner. There are the companies set up by all the tycoons and oligarchs of power in Russia, of the big Russian companies. We have to see in this confrontation whether they agree with Wagner or have isolated her. According to information coming from Great Britain, which has very good intelligence services, columns of the Wagner are pointing from Voronezh towards Moscow”.
They made it more than half the way from Rostov to Moscow without apparently meeting any resistance. It’s even faster than the Taliban march on Kabul in 2021…
“The Russians definitely have units around Moscow. I don’t know to what extent they are combat ready units, capable of resisting these Wagner banditen».
But can Prigozhin do it?
«I don’t think so, but a lot also depends on the relationship between the armed forces and the forces of the Ministry of the Interior, which also has heavily armed units. I don’t know whether they agree with the military to crack down on Wagner, or they will end up supporting Wagner. It is a terrible mess that has its origins in a truly idiotic decision to invade the Ukraine. But in my opinion the revolt must be crushed. It is unacceptable for a country with 6,000 nuclear warheads to fall into civil war.”
So in your opinion Prigozhin in power would be worse than Putin?
«And yes, because in my opinion he is crazy. Decidedly”.
However, what he described is all a neo-feudal scenario…
«Yes, in a certain sense, due to the fact that Putin is no longer able to control the ruling class of the country. Every oligarch goes about his business.”
But did the war wage to block this process, or did the war accelerate it?
«They waged war to block this process but also because Russia is in a profound demographic and economic crisis, it is becoming a kind of petrostate but also its technological excellence, in terms of armaments, nuclear, space and so on, is rapidly declining. Then the mass of the population is fatalistic, but when it begins to unleash there are no limits to violence. I think it’s really worrying.”
Russia has supporters who speak of its spiritual superiority, and detractors who argue that the only spirit in which Russians are superior is the amount of vodka they gulp…
«Actually in Russia there are some sectors that are certainly of extreme excellence. Nuclear, military, space. But the mass of the population is completely devoid of will. He has no spirit of initiative. I became aware of this when I was working with Sogin on the dismantling of the ex-Soviet nuclear missiles of the Northern Fleet. The workers, if you could get them to work three days a week, that was already a lot: they went to get drunk, on Fridays and Tuesdays they still had hangovers. The average life span of Russians is lower than that of Nigeria, which is 64-65 years for men.
And yet, I repeat, there is all this insistence on the moral superiority of the Russians over the West…
«It is the teaching of the Orthodox Church, which feels itself to be the true heir of Christianity. Much of Russian radicalism originates precisely from the deep Orthodox religious faith of the Russians».
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