The forces of the paramilitary group Wagner began to leave their positions in Russia on the orders of their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who did an about face after frontally challenging the authority of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
After a day of spectacular armed rebellion, Prigojine must leave for Belarus and the charges against him will be dropped, the Kremlin has announced. The whereabouts of the tempestuous boss of Wagner, who had promised the day before “to liberate the Russian people” by launching his troops towards Moscow, but finally backtracked in order to avoid spilling “Russian blood”, is unknown.
“It was in the best interest to avoid a bloodbath,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said late in the evening, hailing “a resolution without further casualties” to the crisis, which has seen the Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko playing the mediator.
For an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mykhailo Podoliak, “Prigozhin humiliated Putin and the state and showed that there is no longer a monopoly on violence.”
This crisis, as extraordinary as it is short-lived, will not be without consequences for Wagner and for his leader, analysts predict. “There has to be. Otherwise the message is that a military force can openly challenge the state, and others need to understand that the Russian state effectively has a monopoly on violence inside the country,” tweeted Samuel Bendett, a researcher at the Center for Naval Analyses.
“Putin and the security services will probably try to weaken Wagner or remove Prigozhin,” tweeted Rob Lee, a researcher at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in the United States. According to him, “the greatest effects will be felt in the Middle East and Africa, where Wagner has a strong presence.”
Wagner’s troops approached on Saturday less than 400 kilometers from the capital, after having seized in the morning the headquarters of the Russian army in Rostov (South-West), nerve center of operations in Ukraine.
After being cheered on by dozens of locals with cries of “Wagner, Wagner!” “These fighters, with their leader at the head of the convoy, finally left the scene, the governor of the region said overnight. “The Wagner Group column left Rostov and headed for its camps,” Vasily Golubev said on Telegram.
None of the fighters from the Wagner Group, which plays a key role alongside the Russian military in Ukraine, will be prosecuted for the coup, according to the Kremlin. “No one will persecute (the fighters), given their merits on the front” Ukrainian, assured Dmitry Peskov.
While the terms of the deal with Wagner remain subject to speculation, President Lukashenko, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, appears to have played a key role. According to his services, it was he who proposed to the head of Wagner to stop his advance in Russia.
“We are grateful to the President of Belarus for these efforts,” the Kremlin spokesman praised. The events were closely watched by Western governments. According to the Washington Post and the New York Times, US intelligence services warned the White House of an impending Wagner uprising in Russia a day before it broke out.
Faced with his greatest challenge since coming to power in late 1999, President Putin has tried to hold on to this unprecedented rebellion, denouncing it as “treason” and raising the specter of a “civil war”.
At the same time, the Kremlin warned Western countries against any attempt to “take advantage of the internal situation in Russia to achieve their Russophobic goals”. Wagner’s aborted rebellion will “in no way” affect the Russian offensive in Ukraine, his spokesman said late in the evening.
Certain exceptional security measures taken in Russia in the face of Wagner’s advance have begun to be lifted, notably in the Lipetsk region, south of Moscow, where paramilitaries had entered. The mayor of Moscow had called on residents to limit travel in the city, describing the situation as “difficult”, and declared Monday a day off.
The time therefore now seems to be relative calm between Putin and the head of Wagner, after a day on Saturday punctuated by virulent statements from the two men.
Saturday morning in an address to the nation, Vladimir Putin, in a black suit, with a serious air and a martial tone, attacked without naming him the man who dares to challenge him, accusing “the traitors” and promising to “punish” them.
“It’s a stab in the back of our country and our people,” Vladimir Putin said. “What we are facing is nothing but betrayal. A betrayal caused by the excessive ambitions and personal interests” of Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Vladimir Putin “is deeply mistaken” and my fighters will not “surrender”, retorted the leader of Wagner, who for several months has been critical of Russian military strategy in Ukraine. “We are patriots. No one is going to surrender at the request of the president, the security services or anyone else,” he promised, attacking the Russian president for the first time directly.
In several audio messages on Friday, Wagner’s boss claimed that Russian strikes had caused a “very large number of victims” in his ranks and accused Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of being responsible. These accusations “do not correspond to reality and are a provocation”, retorted the Ministry of Defense.
