Russia has been facing a civil war in recent hours after Wagner’s mercenaries sent by the Putin regime to fight in Ukraine rebelled against the army on Friday and began their march on Moscow this Saturday. The fear of the Russian authorities was such that it was learned that the presidential plane had come to take off from the country’s capital.
Late in the afternoon, Evgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Wagner, accepted the proposal of the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko – who had received authorization from Putin to undertake mediation – to stop an advance that had lasted almost 200 kilometers away. from Moscow. And he ordered his men to return “to bases” “to avoid bloodshed.”
The agreement with Lukashenko would include “security guarantees for Wagner’s fighters,” the official Belarusian BelTA news agency reported. “The time has come when Russian blood could be shed. That is why we understand the responsibility for this Russian bloodshed on one of the parties and we are going to turn back our convoys and return to the camps according to plan,” Prigozhin said in a statement. Telegram. The Krmlin spokesman has reported that Prigozhin will go to Belarus, without legal cause, as part of the deal and that there will be no consequences for Wagner members who have participated in the march to Moscow.
Prigozhin’s forces had easily taken control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and were advancing into the Lipetsk region early on Saturday with little resistance, the local governor said. Wagner’s mercenaries were prepared to remain entrenched in Rostov unless Wagner’s two main rivals, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu; and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, came to meet Prigozhin in an appointment that seemed more like an ambush than a negotiating meeting. Known as Putin’s chef, he has demanded nothing less than the dismissal of Shoigu and the replacement of the entire military leadership since Friday.
Given the very serious turn of events, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the country early in the morning saying that all those who had taken up arms against the authorities were “traitors” and threatened a “harsh response”. , assuring that the army had orders of what to do.
The Russian leader avoided calling Evgeny Prigozhin by name, who had made a stronghold with his men at the military headquarters of the southern district of the Russian Armed Forces, located in the city of Rostov, on the border with Ukraine. Putin promised that all those who embarked on the path of rebellion “will suffer inevitable punishment.” “Strong measures will be taken to stabilize the situation in Rostov-on-Don.” “These actions, which divide our unity, are, in essence, defeatism before the people themselves,” Putin lamented, adding: “This is a stab in the back for our country and our people.”
In parallel, the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, published a statement on Telegram in which he announced that “an anti-terrorist operation regime has been declared in Moscow” and that Monday will be a “non-working day” to “minimize risks”. “The situation is difficult,” he added. He also said that it was possible that roads and neighborhoods would be closed to traffic.
And, in what showed the degree of tension and concern of the regime, Sobyanin asked Muscovites to “refrain from traveling around the city as much as possible.” “Municipal services are on high alert,” he stressed.
For the first time, the power of the Kremlin has been called into question from an armed instance, although it is a private army with an unclear status in Russia. The UK’s Defense Intelligence agency described the crisis as the “biggest challenge for the Russian state in recent times”. The same sources indicated that the loyalty of the Russian security forces, and especially of the Russian National Guard, was going to be key in determining how this crisis will end up developing.
In a few hours of such uncertainty, the citizens of Moscow were able to see yesterday from their homes how armored vehicles patrolled the main arteries of the megacity. And all over the country they were watching videos of people in Rostov fleeing from explosions.
The information and messages about the armed challenges to the Kremlin and the accumulation of images recalled the failed coup in the summer of 1991, launched by the hard line of the KGB. Although that coup was defeated, the USSR was mortally wounded. And, in this case, however Putin’s response comes out, the truth is that the Russian president had never gone to bed as weak as these last two nights. It is impossible for Russia to wake up this Sunday with less uncertainty about the future.
The Wagner founder reiterated throughout Saturday that his operation was not a coup. But in reality all the actions had the traces of a challenge to Putin’s power. He even pointed out that his forces would “destroy” any resistance, including barricades and planes: “We are 25,000 and we are going to find out why there is so much chaos in the country.”
Prigozhin late on Friday accused the Russian military of shelling his bases, after months of criticizing a lack of ammunition and mismanagement of the war in Ukraine. Until now he only attacked the military leadership, but in his message that day he questioned the decision to start this war. Prigozhin had long been synonymous with internal turmoil. In May a video was released in which he, surrounded by the bodies of his troops, berated the Defense Minister and the Chief of the General Staff for not supplying them with enough ammunition.
Prigozhin’s mercenary army consists of volunteers and released convicts. Even so, they have put in check what is supposedly the second largest army in the world, which has also failed in a year and a half to fulfill Putin’s fantasy of unifying under his command the old territories of the Russian empire that remained within the borders of Ukraine. The trip to the past, the escalation towards the empire, is turning out to be a typical romp of a failed state. The Russians want to be as far away from that scenario as possible.
Images and testimonies collected on Saturday showed active fighting along the M-4 highway south of the Russian city of Voronezh, located north of Rostov. There are videos of helicopters and a wrecked truck along the road. Other photos posted by pro-Wagner Telegram channels claimed to show Russian soldiers at a border crossing in Voronezh laying down their arms. Residents of the region report sounds of combat. The region’s governor, Alexander Gusev, said the Russian military was moving into action in the region.
Putin had promised in his televised speech to take “decisive measures” to stabilize the situation. “These actions, which divide our unity, are, in essence, defeatism towards one’s own people,” Putin says. “This is a stab in the back for our country and our people.”
To have any chance of success, Prigozhin needed to appeal to disgruntled sections of the military and the Russian security services.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov kept an ambiguous silence for hours. He controls a considerable group of soldiers estimated at 20,000 men and has always been close to Wagner. Finally in the morning he announced that his forces were heading to the “tension zones” and called the Prigozhin mutiny “a stab in the back.”
Nor has Sergei Surovikin, the high command of the Defense leadership closest to Prigozhin, who had been in charge of relations with the mercenaries, sided with him in this mutiny. Surovikin, deputy head of Russian forces in Ukraine whose leadership Prigozhin has praised in the past, called on Wagner’s leader “to stop the convoys and return them to his bases.” The general asked “not to play the enemy’s game at a difficult time for our country.”
Ukraine has taken advantage of the moment of weakness to relaunch its attacks on Bakhmut. Ukraine’s President Volodimir Zelensky commented on the events in Russia: “Everyone who chooses the path of evil destroys himself. He sends military columns to destroy the life of another country, and he cannot prevent them from fleeing and betraying him.” “.
Every minute that this situation continues in Russia decimates the strength of a regime based on total control of power. In his five-minute speech, Putin evoked the Russian Revolution of 1917, which occurred as the Russian Empire was fighting World War I. He assured Putin that he will do “everything to protect Russia” and that “we will prevail, we will come out stronger.”
A prominent state TV presenter and tough pro-war propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov, lamented the possible “civil war” in Russia in a video he posted on his social media. he urging Wagner’s fighters to withdraw.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
