Wagner Group discovered the fragility of Russia

He Russian leader Vladimir Putin stop the rebellion at Mercenaries of the Wagner Group but it shows the fragility of its system, after confirming that in 24 hours an armed group can take over a Russian city and approach Moscow.

“A revolutionary situation took place. A rebellion in Moscow could have changed the government. We let the possibility escape, that’s a minus. But the regime weakened because of it, that’s a plus,” he wrote on his Telegram channel. acquaintance Russian opposition entrepreneur Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

But the former tycoon, who until his conviction and exile was the richest man in Russia, said that “situations like this will happen again”.

“And you have to be more prepared for them,” he warned.

Khodorkovsky described as “impotent damage” to opponents who did not dare to help Wagner’s boss Yevgeny Prigozhinto overthrow Putin and take over power and declared that they are like “sand inside dynamite, they neither explode nor let it explode”.

More questions than answers
It is true that the situation created by the Wagner rebellion raises more questions than answers.

The Wagners crossed the border unopposed, entered Rostov-on-Don, and captured the General Headquarters and other military objectives without firing a single shot, pushing at least four military columns almost to Moscow, without loss, but downing several helicopters and a Russian military plane.

They would have arrived in the Russian capital if Prigozhin hadn’t decided, after a conversation with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, to turn the tables, after an agreement that didn’t benefit the Wagners or their boss too much, just to “avoid bloodshed.”

Although the most professional units are now fighting in Ukraine, many wonder how the Wagnerites managed to get so far and whether it was a weakness of the Russian military command or a deliberate decision to allow Prigozhin and Lukashenko to negotiate.

Kyiv eyes the dismantling of Russia
But despite the failure of the rebellion, Kiev considers it to have marked the beginning of Putin’s “dismantling of the system”.

“It is the tip of the iceberg of the destabilization process,” Council Secretary Oleksi Danilov announced on Twitter.

The only option Putin has to “save himself” is the “physical liquidation” of the Wagners, exemplary punishment of Prigozhin and the implementation of a state of emergency, he added.

He Advisor to the Ukrainian Presidency Mikhailo PodOliak regretted Wagner’s withdrawal when he was supposed to “outvote Putin” and after negotiations with “a broker with a dubious reputation, Lukashenko,” who promises “security guarantees.”

“Putin’s elite” lived 24 hours a day in fear, added the advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to whom Prigozhin “humiliated” the Kremlin leader and showed that he does not have a “monopoly on violence.”

Russia is returning to normal
Meanwhile, Russia is slowly returning to a strange “normality”, shaken for almost 24 hours by this unprecedented rebellion that practically did not affect the life of the capital, despite the threat that advanced in its direction, and the media very lukewarm. Russian press.

After Prigozhin left Rostov-on-Don on Saturday evening and disappeared from the press, allegedly heading for Belarus, the Wagner family began to leave the city with cheers from one side and whistles from the other.

Despite the fact that Wagner’s group led a rebellion that the Kremlin described as treason and a “stab in the back”, many Russians see this paramilitary formation as heroes who brought victories to Russian arms and who face the bureaucracy, which creates mixed feelings among the population.

He Governor of Voronezh Oblast Aleksandar Gusevhe reported that Wagner’s columns crossed the territory back to their bases “normally and without excess”.

In neighboring Lipetsk, where the Wagners also passed, the authorities assure that they are working to gradually restore traffic on the roads, blocked the day before by trucks or ditches.

Chechen fighters from the Akhmat unit, sent to Rostov to quell the uprising, also returned to their bases in Ukraine, Chechen commander Apti Alaudinov said, to “continue their missions to liberate Marinka” in the east of the country.

Uprising viewed from the outside
The international community reacted differently to the rebellion: G7 foreign ministers agreed to “coordinate with regard to the situation in Russia”, while the EU will analyze the events in Luxembourg on Monday, all in the context of military aid to Ukraine.

He Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić He assessed it as “a big mistake of Russia” that it gave so much power to Wagner’s group, because “some businessmen, as soon as they grab millions, think that they need to order the state and the world. And they think that they have achieved everything without the help of the state.” .

There was no lack of allies of the Kremlin in Latin America either: Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega sent Putin a message of solidarity, while Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro celebrated that the Kremlin emerged from this situation as a “winner”.