2023-06-26 19:47:33
The boss of the Wagner paramilitary group said Monday that its march on Moscow He “was a master class” in what Russia’s invasion of Ukraine might have looked like, insisting he never set out to topple Vladimir Putin but rather to prevent the Kremlin from taking control of his mercenary army.
Yevgueni Prigozhin thus denied, in an audio message, that he wanted to take power in Russia and justified that his aborted rebellion was aimed at saving his organization and exposing the “serious security problems” in the country.
In his first published audio message since ending his 24-hour rebellion, Prigozhin did not reveal his whereabouts, explaining: “The aim of the march was not to allow the destruction of the Wagner group and to hold accountable those who with their unprofessional actions made a considerable number of mistakes during the special military operation” in Ukraine.
Putin denounces Wagner’s entry into Rostov as an act of “betrayal” and a “stab” at Russia
According to him, the march of his men towards Moscow “demonstrated the serious security problems in the country” because they were able to seize without much resistance the army headquarters in the city of Rostov as well as several military installationstraveling 780 kilometers before stopping “just over 200 km from Moscow”.
If Wagner’s forces did not advance further it was, according to Prigozhin, so as not to “shed Russian blood”. He also said that he did not want to “overthrow” President Putin and He clarified that he had the support of the civilians he came across during the march.
“Civilians greeted us with Russian flags and the Wagner symbol,” he said. “Everyone was very happy when we passed by,” he said, describing his mercenary fighters as “perhaps the most experienced and combat-effective unit in Russia, possibly in the world.”
In his message, Prigozhin also reaffirmed that he shot down Russian air force planes.
The “roller coaster” of the mutiny against Vladimir Putin
The head of the Wagner Group has been accusing Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russian Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov of incompetence and of sending tens of thousands of soldiers to certain death for months.
According to him, the ministry tried to dismantle Wagner to absorb him into the army and then bombed one of his camps, killing thirty people, a charge the Russian military denies. This Monday he reaffirmed that the private military company had done “a huge amount of work in the interests of Russia“.
Within 24 hours, Prigozhin’s forces seized several military installations in the strategic southwestern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, driving 600 km in the direction of Moscow.
In Rostov, his fighters were cheered as they left the military headquarters they had taken over, from which operations in Ukraine are coordinated. The rebellion ended after an agreement under which Prigozhin obtained guarantees of immunity for himself and his men. in exchange for putting an end to the uprising. According to the Kremlin, he should go into exile in Belarus.
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Wagner’s Rebellion: Towards the Beginning of the End for Putin?
The rebellion of the mercenaries exposed weaknesses in the position of the Russian president and raises questions about the growing threats to his political survivalthe analysts say.
Several observers point out that it is still too early to determine what consequences this coup will have for Putin, 70, who has ruled Russia for almost two and a half decades since the resignation in 1999 of Boris Yeltsin, the first president after the end of the Union. Soviet.
At a time when Russia is holding an invasion against Ukraine, the rebellion exposed as an illusory image the idea of Putin as a strong and all-powerful man and showed a politician with weaknesses, who struggles to control warring factions.
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“Putin and the state suffered a hard blow, which is going to have important repercussions for the regime,” he said. Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the consultancy R. Politik.
The head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, declared over the weekend that the rebellion exposed “real fissures.”
The bitter infighting revealed by the revolt, including the personal dispute between Prigozhin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, showed that Putin is no longer comfortably positioned in a vertical system of power. Besides, the armed forces were unable to prevent Wagner’s fighters from seizing the command center of the Russian army in Rostov.
The revolt died down within hours, but the images of Prigozhin and his fighters treated like heroes in Rostov put the Kremlin in an awkward position.
For Kirill Rogov, director of the consultancy Re: Russia“This is not the end of the story, it is the beginning. Military rebellions, even those that fail, many times in history are the prelude, the beginning of a process.”
For Mark Galeotti, director of the Mayak Intelligence think tank“none of this implies that the regime is going to collapse soon,” but noted that the rebellion “hurts the capacity, strength and credibility of the state and brings closer the day when this regime falls.”
“My conclusion is that Prigozhin and Wagner lost,” said Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA). “But Putin also lost and the regime is hurt. It remains to be seen what the long-term repercussions will be.”
The silence of the Kremlin
Prigozhin, a millionaire businessman who was an ally of Putin, ended his rebellion on Saturday night in exchange for the Kremlin’s promise of immunity for himself and his men. But on Monday, all Russian news agencies announced that the criminal investigation against him for “call an armed riot“was still open.
This crisis represents the biggest challenge that Vladimir Putin has faced since he came to power in 1999, events that reveal”true fissures” at the highest level of the Russian stateestimated on Sunday the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.
The Wagner mutiny clearly shows that the assault on Ukraine was a “strategic mistake,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said. Many analysts say the crisis in Russia could weaken Russian forces on the ground and benefit those in kyiv, which is waging a difficult counteroffensive for several weeks.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar announced on monday new advances against the Russian forces with the recapture of 17 km2 of additional land against the forces of Moscowbringing a total of 130 km2 advances since the beginning of June.
Putin reappeared this Monday for the first time since the end of the revolt in a video in which he addressed a forum dedicated to youth and industry, without mentioning the facts. According to the Kremlin, he also met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the Emir of Qatar, who showed their “support” for the Russian leader after the armed rebellion.
Putin has not spoken publicly about the rebellion since his televised speech on Saturday, in the midst of the crisis, in which he accused Prigozhin of treason. His Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, who disappeared during the rebellion of Wagner’s boss, the main object of his criticism, also reappeared on Monday in a video reviewing the Russian forces in Ukraine.
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