The failed rebellion of the Wagner group shows the fragility of Putin and his system

Vladimir Putin He managed to stop Wagner’s rebellion, but much remained in the maneuver. Uprising led by mercenaries Yevgeny Prigozhin showed the fragility of the system of the President of Russia, who could not prevent an armed group from occupying a Russian city within 24 hours and advancing towards Moscow until it was barely 200 kilometers from the capital.

“A revolutionary situation has occurred. The rebellion in Moscow could have changed the government. We let the possibility escape, this is a minus. But the regime is weakened because of it, that’s a plus,” wrote a well-known Russian opposition businessman on his Telegram channel. Mikhail Khodorkovsky. However, the former tycoon, who until his conviction and exile was the richest man in Russia, claimed that “There will be more situations like this”. “And you have to be more prepared for them,” he warned.

Opponents who did not dare to help Wagner’s boss to overthrow Putin and take power were described by Khodorkovsky as “impotently harmful” and asserted that they are like “sand in dynamite, they neither explode nor allow it to explode”, reports Efe.

It is true that the situation created by the Wagner rebellion raises more questions than answers. The Wagnerians crossed the border without any resistance, entered Rostov-on-Don and without firing a single shot captured the General Headquarters and other military objectives, pushing at least four military columns almost to Moscow, without a single loss, but downing several helicopters and one 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 columns, after agreements that didn’t bring much benefit to either the Wagner family or their boss, just to “avoid” bloodshed.” Although the most professional units are now fighting in Ukraine , Many wonder how the Wagners managed to make so much progress. and they wonder whether it is a weakness of the Russian military command or a deliberate decision to allow negotiations between Prigozhin and Lukashenko.

Start of “dismantling”

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,” tweeted Council Secretary Oleksi Danilov. 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.

An adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mikhailo Podoliak, lamented 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 through 24 hours of fearadded Volodymyr Zelensky, adviser to the Ukrainian president, according to whom Prigozhin “humiliated” the Kremlin leader and showed that he does not have a “monopoly on violence”.

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 late on Saturday and disappeared from the media, allegedly heading for Belarus, the Wagner family began to leave the city to cheers on one side and whistles on 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.

Withdrawal of mercenaries

The governor of the Voronezh region, Alexander Gusev, reported that Wagner’s columns crossed the territory back to their bases “normally and without excesses”.

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, according to Chechen commander Apti Alaudinov, to “continue their missions to liberate Márinka” in the east of the country.

The international community reacted differently: the G7 foreign ministers agreed to “coordinate the situation in Russia”, while the EU will analyze the events in Luxembourg on Monday, all in the context of military aid to Ukraine. The United States, according to its Secretary of State Antony Blinken, pointed out the “real cracks” that the rebellion revealed in Putin’s authority and assured that the crisis for the Russian president is not over.

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 Nicolás Maduro celebrated that the Kremlin emerged from this situation as a “winner”.

The Kremlin knew about the coup attempt, the United States claims

“They were ready for something like this,” says their intelligence

United States intelligence agencies suspect that Russian President Vladimir Putin was warned of a possible mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group and its leader Yevgeny Prigozin about a day before the insurgency led by the organization began on Friday with the seizure of the Russian city of Rostov, the seat of Russia’s southern command headquarters. army.

The intelligence sources he cites The Washington Post They understand that during this last week, “enough evidence” began to accumulate for the Kremlin to “conclude that something is going on there.” However, as sources in the same services admitted to CNN on Saturday, the exact nature of what was about to happen, as well as the exact moment when it happened, were unknown to all but Prigozhin and his men.

“I think they were ready for something like that”, however, the intelligence source points out publish collected by Europa Press.

Those sources estimate that the key moment occurred on June 10, when the Russian Ministry of Defense ordered Wagner to adhere to government policy that all groups of armed volunteers must sign contracts with the military, something Prigozhin understood as conscription, the last straw in months of disagreement with the Russian military leadership about the development of the war in Ukraine.

While U.S. intelligence does not know precisely when Putin was tipped off that Prigozhin might respond with force to these tensions, they believe he “knew at least 24 hours in advance” of Wagner’s operation, according to these sources.

What they don’t know is why Putin didn’t immediately react on the ground to the capture of Rostov, although they suspect the slow reaction was due to a lack of high-level coordination within the Kremlin “probably due to internal rivalries.” resolve the crisis that was finally defused on Saturday afternoon, when Prigozhin ordered the withdrawal of the convoy that was taking him to Moscow thanks to the mediation of Russian President Alexander Lukashenko.