“Prigozhin he won, Putin is the big loser, but that’s not all”. The long march of the mercenaries of Wagner towards Moscow, which began yesterday morning, stopped 200 km from the Russian capital. All day yesterday the international community was with the breath suspendedbetween vitriolic declarations and advances in the field that made us believe we were facing the beginning of the end of the Vladimir Putin.
Prigozhin’s real targets – “Prigozhin had no intention of carrying out a coup, it was not an uprising against Putin,” he tells fattoquotidiano.it Abbas Galyamov, who as a former speechwriter and close collaborator of Russian President Vladimir Putin is now included in the Kremlin’s wanted list. “When you want to make a coup d’état – continues Gallyamov – he declares it. Well, this Prigozhin has never done it”. Indeed, of the intent to overthrow the power of Vladimir Putin there is no trace in the public statements of the head of Wagner, all threats and accusations are aimed at the Minister of Defense Shoigu and the Chief of Staff Gerasimov. “His only goal – says Gallyamov – was to get rid of them. For Prigozhin, Putin had to fire them or bring them to trial”.
The Russian defense minister and the head of Wagner had been at loggerheads for some time, but the first signs that words were turning to deeds were glimpsed on Friday morning, when Prigozhin gave an interview in which he didn’t mince words. The head of Wagner, in fact, openly accused Shoigu of having wanted to start the “special operation” in Ukraine only for personal career interests, deceiving the Russian people and President Putin himself providing him with “false information about a possible threat to Russia from Ukraine”. Prigozhin blamed the poor results of the Russian military operation in Ukraine on the wicked choices of Shoighu and Gerasimov. According to what the head of Wagner had already denounced for months, the situation on the ground was unsustainable. Few weapons and badly trained soldiers – the Russian ones – against a well armed and tactically prepared army – the Ukrainian one – despite this being almost non-existent until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 24, 2022. The tipping point was reached when, yesterday at dawn, the Wagner group announced that it had shot down a Russian helicopter after it allegedly hit one of their convoys in the Voronezh region, a few kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
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Not a plan but survival instinct – Although the New York Times reported that the United States knew from mesi of a plan to overthrow power in Moscow, Prigozhin’s initiative seems to have been rather the result of the pure survival instinct of a man who has everything to lose, as well as the reflection of internal struggles. “I think there was no ‘plan’. Prigozhin sensed that the situation on the ground is looking bad for the Russians and that Putin’s regime will collapse – Gallyamov says – He is aware that regardless of who comes after the tsar, if he doesn’t do something to change the course of events, he will be the first to go to jail. He’s like a drowning person trying desperately to keep afloat.” According to a Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskovan agreement with Prigozhin would have been reached thanks to the mediation of the Belarusian president Lukashenko. At this point there are two aspects yet to be understood: what Prigozhin received in return to stop the advance, and what lies behind the decision to entrust the mediation to the Belarusian president. “As regards the first question, it is probable that he received so much money that he considered it right to stop – Abbas Gallyamov tells al fattoquotidiano.it – we must remember that Prigozhin is a cynical businessman. I am absolutely sure that he is not interested in political power, he is only interested in his services being paid well ”. Furthermore, it was understood that the channels of dialogue between the Kremlin and the head of Wagner had been interrupted when, on Saturday morning, the Russian president himself had intervened live nationally, defining Wagner’s militiamen as “traitors”, “blackmailers” and “terrorists”. Also on the second question, Gallyamov is equally certain: “The fact that the mediation has been entrusted to an agent outside Russia says a lot about the state of health of Putin’s regime”, says Abbas Gallyamov, who continues: “Not only they were militarily able to stop the Wagner as it advanced towards Moscow – besides the fact that many men in the Russian army believe that Prigozhin is right and sympathize with him-, but a severe blow was also dealt to the internal political system: this story revealed that there is no negotiator in the Kremlin capable of mediating between Putin and Prigozhin”.
The last unknown – The last unknown concerns the fate of the head of Wagner and his company itself. In some statements made to journalists yesterday evening, Peskov declared that “the Wagner militiamen who want it and who did not participate in the rebellion will be placed in the regular army”. It looks like the prelude to a dismantling of Prigozhin’s paramilitary company, although it’s too early to tell. On the other hand, yesterday Wagner demonstrated that she was capable of quickly taking control of Rostov-on-Don, one of the most important Russian cities, and of marching towards Moscow without the Russian army being able to do anything to prevent it. “What is certain is that Prigozhin is the real winner of this story because he has shown that he is capable of seriously threatening the Russian capital and also to decide when to stop – says Gallyamov – He has shown that he has the upper hand, and for this reason Putin is the great loser”. The game, however, is not over.
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