Since Russian President Vladimir Putin assumed power, he has tried to portray himself as the guarantor of stability in Russia, but the armed rebellion led by the “Wagner” paramilitary group revealed that this was not true after the appearance of Major. Weaknesses in his rule.
The sudden rebellion of Yevgeny Prigozhin, commander of the Russian private military “Wagner” group, was the most dramatic challenge to Putin’s 23 years of power. However, the Russian president was content to hide from view and issue brief statements. The “stability” he always promotes does not exist throughout Russia. According to a newspaper report,The New York Times“.
After the Russian president’s speech, his former ally Prigozhin found himself a “traitor” but hailed as a “hero” by many Russian citizens, while Putin and his men disappeared from view and their whereabouts were the subject of speculation. A newspaper report.The Washington Post“.
Some Russians and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky questioned whether Putin had left the capital, prompting the Kremlin to take the unusual step of insisting he had not.
Consequences of Rebellion
Inside Russia, hard-line military bloggers derided Moscow’s provocative “security,” and Russians with ties to the Kremlin took comfort in the fact that the “Wagner Rebellion” did not spark a civil war, but at the same time Putin “looked weak. That’s the way it could last.”
Moscow newspaper editor Konstantin Remshukov said people close to Putin may try to persuade him not to run in the upcoming Russian presidential election.
After Wagner’s rebellion, Putin definitively lost his position as guarantor of elite wealth and security, he told The New York Times.
For his part, the Kremlin’s former political adviser, Sergei Markov, spoke of the most stormy debate about the “consequences of armed rebellion.”
Everyone more or less agrees, he told the Washington Post, that Russia shouldn’t have too many private forces “out of control.”
For Putin, the rebellion could lead to an “existential crisis,” the Russian president has always prided himself on the “solidity of the state,” and this turned out not to be the case, according to a former Kremlin political adviser.
Wagner’s armed rebellion ended after the mediation of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, seen as a follower of the Russian president, which raised doubts about “the strength of Putin’s power,” according to the Washington Post.
Liana Fix at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations asked Russian President Lukashenko for help, saying, “How can Putin allow this?”
Calm returned to Russia after Wagner’s fighters retreated from positions they held, but the failure to punish Prigogine and his men weakened “Putin’s reputation as a decisive leader with no tolerance for disloyalty,” according to the New York Times.
Among senior Russian officials, there was no clear sign of disloyalty to Putin, but observers noted that during the 24-hour uprising, the response from some ranged from general calls for Russian unity to calm as they waited to see which side they would take. success
One of the most puzzling aspects is why Putin allowed the public conflict between the Wagner commander and the Defense Ministry to escalate.
Two people close to the Kremlin, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the crisis as primarily the result of a “dysfunctional system of government on the brink of anarchy.”
Decisions on how to deal with the Wagner commander’s rebellion were made quickly on Saturday, months after Putin and his inner circle neglected to find a way to deal with Prigozhin, they told The New York Times.
For his part, Prigozhin’s case was “somewhat neglected,” said Konstantin Zatulin, a prominent member of parliament and a member of Putin’s United Russia party.
He insisted that the danger posed by the “Wagner” commander was not detected in time, in his interview with the “New York Times”.
Zadulin said Putin had finally provided stability to avoid a pitched war outside Moscow, but acknowledged “there is a problem.”
For his part, Markov, a former Kremlin political adviser, pointed to another weakness, the failure of Putin’s security services to adequately inform the president of Commander Wagner’s intentions.
“They either failed because they did poorly, or they weren’t allowed to bring their clients to the Wagner group,” he said.
Markov stressed that one of the possible outcomes of the uprising was a “radical change” in the Russian defense and security services.
In Western capitals, intelligence analysts wondered whether Putin had not ordered Prigozhin’s arrest because he feared his officials would refuse to do so, the Washington Post reported.
“The Big Unanswered Question: Could Putin Have Ordered a Deadly Airstrike Against Prigozhin”? said Bob Seeley, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament.
He asked further questions: “Could Putin have killed Commander Wagner, or was the situation too dire for him to be able to?”
For her part, Hannah Knott, non-resident fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, pointed out that events in Russia revealed “a flaw in Putin’s system,” adding that “this flaw is probably very permanent. A system like this.”
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