Riga The troops of the private Russian military company Wagner are just under 200 kilometers away from the Russian capital Moscow on Saturday evening when the sudden turnaround comes: The head of the Wagner troop, Yevgeny Prigoschin, surprisingly announces the withdrawal of the mercenaries and orders them back to their home Bases. He wanted to avoid bloodshed, Prigoschin justified the decision.
This seems to have averted the Wagner boss’s attempted putsch. During the night of Saturday, the mercenary force first took control of the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, not far from the border with Ukraine, where the headquarters of the Russian army for the south of the country is located. From there, the Russian army largely coordinates the war of aggression against Ukraine. Then the mercenaries advanced through Voronezh to Lipetsk. In the meantime, Moscow had massively increased security precautions.
Earlier on Friday, Prigozhin accused Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of firing rockets at Wagner mercenaries. The development was preceded by a month-long power struggle between the Russian army under Shoigus and the private mercenary army under Prigozhin.
Over the course of Saturday, this power struggle escalated into an open confrontation between Shoigu and Russian President Vladimir Putin himself. Putin had called his former confidante Prigozhin a “traitor” in the morning and ordered his own armed forces to punish the insurgents. The authorities in Moscow and the surrounding area declared an anti-terror emergency.
>> Read about this: Prigozhin’s militia rebels against the Russian army
On Saturday evening, Prigozhin then said in a voice message via Telegram: “Our columns are turning around and going in the opposite direction to the camps”. So far, “not a drop of our fighters’ blood” has been spilled, said Prigozhin. “Now the moment has come when blood could be spilled.” That’s why it’s time to turn the columns around.
Immediately before, the press service of the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko had announced that he had persuaded Prigozhin to give up. “Prigozhin has accepted the proposal of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to stop his gunmen from the Wagner squad and take further steps to de-escalate,” said a press release from the President’s Office of the state news agency Belta. Lukashenko was said to have acted as a mediator in consultation with Putin. Later on Saturday evening, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said that the previously opened criminal case against Prigozhin would be dropped. Prigozhin himself will go to Belarus, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.
The Wagner boss will go to Belarus, the criminal proceedings against him will be discontinued.
(Photo: dpa)
During the course of Saturday, Putin called various allied heads of state, which may also have involved support for the Russian government in the tense situation. In addition to talks with Lukashenko, Putin also spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdognan, the Turkish Presidential Office confirmed. According to the Turkish Presidential Office, Erdogan has asked Putin to act with reason. He informed Putin that Turkey was ready to play its part in finding a peaceful solution to the situation. According to information from the Russian side, Erdogan has shown “full support” for the steps taken by the Russian leadership.
Putin apparently campaigned for support in Kazakhstan – in vain
In Central Asia, too, Putin apparently solicited support. According to information from the Russian news agency Tass, he spoke to both Uzbek President Shavkat Mirsiyoyev and Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Kazakhstan is the largest and economically and militarily most important country in Central Asia. It borders directly on Russia.
Tokayev, however, told Putin the situation was a domestic matter for Russia, the Kazakh president’s website reported. The statement is equivalent to an indirect refusal of support from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (OVKS).
Also read on this topic:
The military alliance, whose member states provide mutual military assistance in certain cases, was established in 2002 and the organization is led by Russia. In addition to Russia, members are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
In January 2022, among other things, Russian CSTO troops were deployed in Kazakhstan when mass protests against President Tokayev caused unrest in the country and Tokayev made a corresponding request for help. In addition to Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan sent troops at the time. Kazakhstan’s government issued an order to shoot, according to official figures, more than 160 people were killed and thousands injured.
But experts say CSTO troops would have been unlikely to intervene anyway, underscoring Putin’s isolation during the emergency. Central Asia researcher Nargis Kassenova of the Harvard Davis Center wrote on Saturday that she does not expect Russia to officially request CSTO aid, for symbolic and practical reasons. Russia has already been exposed anyway, and it would be impossible to convince the member states.
“The biggest crisis of Putin’s presidency”
As a result, Putin is emerging from the situation politically severely weakened. Russia analyst Nigel Gould-Davies of the London-based think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies said Saturday the internal conflict is emboldening Ukrainian troops and demoralizing Russian ones. With the mutiny, Prigozhin directly and publicly undermined Putin’s justification for the war of aggression against Ukraine and ridiculed the regular army, Gould-Davies said.
The Kremlin chief was badly damaged, the expert called the situation “the biggest crisis of Putin’s presidency.” The German security expert Carlo Masala from the Bundeswehr University wrote on Saturday evening of a “humiliation” for Putin, “both internally and externally”. The Russian political analyst Tatyana Stanovaja, who now lives and researches in Europe, wrote of a “major defeat” for Putin.
The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also commented on the developments in Russia in the evening. For the first time in a long time, he wrote his nightly video message in Russian instead of Ukrainian – and in it called for Putin’s fall. The longer this person is in the Kremlin, the greater the catastrophe,” said Zelenskiy. The longer Russian troops are in Ukraine, the more devastation they will later bring to Russia. Ukraine’s victory after the Russian invasion 16 months ago is “certain”.
More: Prigozhin’s militia rebels against the Russian army