Confusion and uncertainty enveloped Russia on Sunday, when both President Vladimir V. Putin and Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the head of a rebellious group of mercenaries, did not appear in public a day after the invasion. The deepest government crisis in three decades – an overt military uprising – appeared to be easing.
Even as state television tried to exaggerate the fact that Russia’s unity and “maturity” had prevailed, independent commentators assessing the damage concluded that the aura of infallibility Putin’s mistake and invincibility has been pierced. And some have wondered aloud why most of Russia’s leadership is neither seen nor heard.
Apart from Putin, neither Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu nor Army Chief of Staff Valery V. Gerasimov have appeared in public since. revolution starting on Friday night. Many of the heads of the country’s security services also appeared invisible.
“Where was the head of the Ministry of Defense when the armed unit approached Moscow?” wrote Yuri Kotenok, one of a small group of influential military bloggers who have emerged as a voice of support or criticism regarding the war in Ukraine. He questioned whether a foreign enemy could march into the capital so easily?
World leaders also participated. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Sunday that Mr. Prigozhin’s rebellion had exposed rifts in Mr. Putin’s hold on power. “It’s a direct challenge to Putin’s authority,” Blinken said on CBS.Facing the Motherland.”
Finally, Mr. Prigozhin, the head of the mercenary force known as the Wagner, summoned his men after organizing an armed uprising against the army’s leadership because almost 24 hours this weekend. But the damage has been done, not least because of his harsh criticisms of military leaders as incompetent, including questioning the Kremlin’s justifications for aggression. neighboring countries from the very beginning.
The Russians — and the world — watched with vigilance as his armored convoy inched closer to Moscow with little armed resistance, Threaten Mr. Putin and raised the specter of a civil war in the nuclear-armed country.
Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of political analysis firm R.Politik, writes: “Putin and the state have been dealt a heavy blow. She predicts it will have a significant impact on the regime.
Stanovaya noted that Prigozhin only reversed course after Putin, a longtime ally, expressed anger at what the president described as a “stab in the back.” Mr. Prigozhin, she wrote, “found himself unprepared to take on the role of a revolutionary.”
Nor is he prepared for Wagner’s imminent arrival in Moscow, where his only option remains – ‘take over the Kremlin’ – an action that will inevitably lead to his and the wars His troops were destroyed. .
A new analysis by FilterLabs.AI, a company that monitors public sentiment in Russia by monitoring social media and internet forums, shows that Mr Prigozhin was also the subject of a propaganda attack. of the Kremlin. And it has become more difficult to access Telegram channels controlled or supported by Mr Prigozhin, with users reporting a slowdown.
FilterLabs noticed a sharp drop in public support for Prigozhin and Wagner.
“For Prigozhin’s campaign to be effective, he needs to have high support in Moscow,” FilterLabs analysis said. “This didn’t materialize, despite his own support base and media campaigns.”
Instead, an agreement was reached.
Wagner forces will turn around, and Mr. Prigozhin can go to neighboring Belarus and avoid criminal charges. Wagner warriors will also be exonerated.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov said the agreement was signed to “avoid bloodshed, avoid internal confrontation, avoid clashes with unpredictable consequences”. He did not indicate that the uprising would lead to any changes in the leadership of the Russian military, as Prigozhin had requested, and said that Russia’s military activities in Ukraine would continue unchanged.
The agreement to defuse hostilities is credited to the leader of Belarus, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, an ally of Putin. Of course, if Mr. Putin falls, Mr. Lukashenko will also be vulnerable, so in supporting his patron, he is also supporting himself.
“Putin lost because he showed how weak his system is, that he can,” said Pavel Slunkin, a former Belarussian diplomat and analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations. easily challenged. “Prigozhin challenged, he attacked, he was bold and then he retreated, looking like a loser. Only Lukashenko got the points.”
The uprising, even if quashed, could now affect Russia’s global standing as partners like China reassess Putin’s power.
Mr Prigozhin was unusually quiet on Sunday, a day after he was seen driving away from the military headquarters in the southwestern city of Rostov-on-Don that his forces had captured. hold in the uprising. An independent Russian television station asked Prigozhin’s spokesman for comment to be told that he was unavailable, but that he would soon start responding to the press.
It is unclear how safe Mr Prigozhin may be in Belarus, given Mr Putin’s track record of pursuing those he believes have betrayed him, whether in Russia or abroad. As if to emphasize this point, Vesti Nedelu, the Kremlin’s iconic weekly television program, aired an old clip on Sunday of Mr Putin saying that one thing he could never forgive was “” treachery”. A guest on another prominent talk show called for the execution of Mr. Prigozhin and his top military commander.
Alternatively, Mr. Prigozhin’s ambitions as a military leader could conflict with the goals of Mr. Lukashenko, who has tried to keep his country out of war.
“It would be dangerous for Lukashenko to have Wagner in Belarus,” said Dmitry Bolkunets, a Belarusian political scientist who taught at an elite Moscow university before becoming an opposition activist. .
“Prigozhin is a Z patriot,” Bolkunets said, referring to the letter symbolizing the conflict in Ukraine. “He was a pro-war man who wanted an empire, and Lukashenko was afraid of empires.”
Wagner fighters were seen generate of Rostov-on-Don, the military center, with the sound of people chanting the name of the group. Not sure where they are going.
The group of mercenaries leading some of Russia’s most effective military operations in Ukraine say they were faced with a choice: surrender, and controlled byThe country’s Ministry of Defense — an agency it openly despises — or disbanded.
Nikolai A. Pankov, Deputy Defense Minister of Russia, said on June 10 that many of the country’s “volunteer regiments” will have to sign contracts with the ministry by the end of the month. Days later, Putin told a group of pro-military bloggers that contracts should be signed as soon as possible.
Prigozhin has no intention of bowing to Russian military commanders whom he frequently accuses of being corrupt and incompetent. “No one is going to sign the contract,” he said in statement on June 14.
On Sunday, it’s unclear if that’s true.
For Ukraine, while the upheaval could strain Russia’s war effort, analysts say it will create less opportunity than the Russian military being forced to withdraw its reserve units. from the front to defend Moscow.
The attacks continue. Local officials say Russian shells hit a five-story apartment building before dawn in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, killing a 44-year-old man and trapped woman. under the rubble.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine used the brief uprising to re-emphasize his message that his country is fighting a volatile neighbor on behalf of all of Europe.
“Today the world sees that Russia’s bosses don’t control anything,” Zelensky said in a video address late Saturday. “It’s nothing. Total chaos. Absolutely no predictability.”
Mr. Zelensky mocked Mr. Putin without naming him.
“I will say it in Russian: The man from the Kremlin is clearly very scared and is probably hiding somewhere, not showing himself,” he said.
Report contributed by Julian E. Barnes, Valerie Hopkins, Ivan Nechepurenko, Anton Troianovski, Matthew Mpoke Bigg, John Ismay, Alina Lobzina And Milana Mazaeva.
