It’s hard to be a Kremlinologist. You can spend your life dwelling on this subject and end up wrong. In the 1920s, Europe waited for Trotsky and we got Stalin. When he died, people thought of Malenkov, and it was Khrushchev. More recently, with the exception of the CIA and GCHQ (a British intelligence agency), everyone from the DRM, the DGSE and the Élysée were convinced that the accumulation of troops on the Ukrainian border was a decoy, a repeat of the annexation Crimea eight years earlier. And we know the rest.
Once again the whole world was surprised by the extraordinary events of June 24, when Yevgeny Prigoyine, the leader of the Wagner militia, stood up. However, as we explained immediately after the events, the about-face on the M4 (the highway connecting southern Russia with the capital) that ended Prigozhin’s rampage rampage is a beginning and not the end of current events in Russia.
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The first thing to do is to understand what really happened. The explanations for the end of the day on June 24, the 25th, 26th and 27th (Putin, completely confused, intervened three times in three days) are obviously incomplete. No, to decipher the situation one must study the many CIA leaks relayed by the American and British press and understand the psychology of the characters in this drama halfway between Shakespeare and Guy Ritchie.
A brief reminder of official events
For months, the relationship between Prigojine, Wagner’s boss, Sergueï Choïgou, the Russian defense minister, and Valéri Guerassimov, the head of the Russian armed forces, has been catastrophic. The Wagner Group’s charismatic leader regularly railed against the military high command, not only blaming it for its incompetence and widespread corruption, but also accusing it of impeding the movement of its troops and depriving them of ammunition to make up for their lack of military success disguise .
Things take a dramatic turn on June 10, when the Ministry of Defense announces the obligation for all “volunteer detachments” to sign contracts with the Russian army before July 1. This affects the twenty private military companies (PMC) active in Ukraine, but also the Chechen departments such as the Achmat unit.
For two weeks, Prigojine published several videos peppered with insults. The message is clear: his men will not join the Russian army. On June 23, he accused Russian forces of aerial bombardment of one of Wagner’s bases. A few hours later, at the head of a small army of 25,000 men (estimates vary), he seized control of Rostoff-sur-le-Don and made his way down the M4 motorway towards Moscow. It takes Voronezh, passes through Livetsk and suddenly stops near Yelets, less than 200 kilometers from the capital. An agreement allegedly negotiated by the indescribable Alexander Lukashenko is announced: no criminal charges will be brought against Evgueni Prigojine and the mutineers and the Wagner boss will go into exile in Belarus.
What really happened?
Since the spectacular failure of the “special military operation” that was supposed to behead the Ukrainian regime in seven days and take control of the country, President Putin has had only one goal: to stay in power for as long as it takes to reverse the situation. . It’s not just about his place in history, but also about his physical survival and the preservation of his billions.
In order to remain in power, he therefore had to hide the reality of the war from the Russian public (which explains why a general mobilization was never ordered and why it was the ethnic minorities of the peripheral regions who suffered most from the start). . Losses). Putin performs an incredible waltz of the generals at the head of the operational command (Dvornikov, Surovikhin, Guerasimov…), trying above all to maintain the fragile balance between the circles around him.
Building on the role of his troops in the first weeks of fighting the Ukrainians, Prigozhin convinced Putin to go ahead with his plan to start recruiting prisoners in Russian prisons from September 2022. He then launched an attack on Bachmout and Soledar to prove the effectiveness of his methods, certainly to take a more prominent role in military command and also to get revenge on Shoigu (whom he still accuses of violating the contract between Concord, his catering company that was the origin of his colossal fortune). and the Ministry of Defence) and Guerasimov (one of Russia’s most respected military strategists, the symbol of everything he detests).
With the June 10 ultimatum about Wagner joining the Russian army, Prigojine knows he has lost the game. From that day on, it’s a race against time.
The official capture of Bakhmout marked a turning point in events. Prigozhin has certainly renewed his demands on Putin: to oust Shoigu and Gerasimov and replace them with “General Armageddon” Sergei Surovikin, while advocating the use of more brutal methods of warfare. And Putin, who is not known for his quick decisions, was likely reluctant to choose the status quo for fear of a military coup if he gave in to the demands of a former hot-dog salesman.
With the June 10 ultimatum about Wagner joining the Russian army, Prigojine knows he has lost the game. From that day on, it’s a race against time. He has two weeks to prepare his stunt. He must gather his troops discreetly, confide in his confidants like Dmitri Utkin, get enough fuel and ammunition, prepare a plan of attack and, most importantly, scout out his ally Surovikin (whom he knows from Syria). and probably Kadyrov, or even Medvedev, or others. As for Viktor Zolotov, the head of the National Guard, Alexeï Dioumine, the governor of the Tula province, and Dmitry Mironov, it is impossible at this stage to determine the role they may have played.
Shortly before June 24, according to the Wall Street Journal, a new twist occurs: Prigoyine learns that the FSB knows about his plans and decides to start his mutiny ahead of schedule, apparently with the aim of capturing Shoigu and Guerasimov. On the 23rd he invented a pretext to call a riot and on the 24th he made his way to the M4. During his escapade he encounters very little resistance, particularly from the air; A Ka-52 helicopter, an Iliouchine 18 and some fighter jets were shot down, as were about fifteen Russian soldiers. At Livetsk the convoy split in two, and the vanguard led by Utkin continued on to Moscow before turning again to Jelets.
From there we start speculating. Perhaps, according to some of his former associates, Prigozhin, whose mental stability (violence, impulsiveness) is fragile, actually had ambitions, as American intelligence says, to arrest Shoigu and Guerasimov. But an arrest in the middle of Moscow on a Saturday evening is hard to imagine. It therefore seems plausible that Prigozhin’s real goal was to score a bang (he loves media attention) by arriving in Moscow with the complicity of the armed forces to impose his terms on Putin: an official role. For him, maybe Minister of Defense (who knows?), the replacement of Guerasimov by Surovikin, the rise of some of his allies like Alexei Dioumin, etc.
Then it is very likely that on that famous day of the 24th “everyone” was talking to each other and that Prigojine’s “accomplices” turned their coats on at the last moment. Surovikin condemned the actions of Wagner’s boss, Medvedev disappeared in Oman, Kadyrov defended power and sent Chechens to defend Moscow, Lukashenko’s family fled to Dubai … As for the famous Alexei Dioumin, he is mentioned as a possible candidate Is it a Coincidence that the wild team, succeeding Choigou, even Putin, stopped in Tula, the province of which he is governor?
Therefore, for many studying the post-Putin era, Prigozhin will have been the “useful idiot” who forced Putin to move the pieces on the chessboard by ridding them of some of his enemies. Now some of his troops felt betrayed, and according to Ukrainian military intelligence director Kyrylo Budanov, the FSB was tasked with the assassination.
What will happen
As we indicated on June 25, Putin will conduct a purge (it began with the arrest of Surovikin and his close associates, another general who died in a car accident a few days ago, Mikhail Mizintsev has disappeared, from Guerasimov lying no news for us…); He will divert attention by attacking the west (the anti-aircraft missile that hit the pizzeria in Kramatorsk was supposed to kill foreigners), and he will redistribute the cards among his allies.
His goal: to further narrow the circle of his followers while continuing to maintain a subtle balance between the parties. The cleanup will continue in the coming weeks. And the attacks on Ukraine and the West will not abate. On the other hand, two questions remain unanswered: Which of his “allies” will attempt a new strike against Putin in the coming weeks or months? Kadyrov, Dioumin, Zolotov? Difficult to say … Will the apparatchiks (Patrochev, Bortnikov …) rebel? And more specifically: what will become of Wagner?
If some soldiers are likely to join the Russian army, will they infect them and start a rebellion against their leaders? What about Africa? How will Putin reduce Prigojine’s influence in Mali, Central African Republic, Congo and replace him with that of his own men? Eventually, will they, Utkin or another warlord, take the lead of the mercenaries and return to Moscow, but this time to the end?