Moscow, June 25 (EFE).- The Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, stopped the rebellion of the mercenaries of the Wagner Group but shows the fragility of his system, after verifying that in 24 hours an armed group can take a Russian city and approach Moscow.
“A revolutionary situation took place. An uprising in Moscow could have changed power. We let the possibility escape, this is a minus. But the regime was weakened as a result of that, this is a plus,” the well-known Russian opposition businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky wrote on his Telegram channel.
However, the ex-tycoon, who was the richest man in Russia until his conviction and exile, stated that “more situations like this will arise.”
“And you have to be more prepared for them,” he warned.
Khodorkovsky called opponents who did not dare to help Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin overthrow Putin and seize power “powerless harm” and said they are like “sand inside dynamite, neither explode nor let it explode.” .
More questions than answers
The truth is that the situation created by Wagner’s rebellion raises more questions than answers.
The Wagnerites crossed the border without any resistance, entered Rostov-on-Don and occupied the General Staff and other military objectives without a single shot, moved at least four military columns almost to Moscow without suffering a casualty, but shooting down several helicopters and one plane Russian military.
They would have arrived in the Russian capital if Prigozhin had not decided, after conversations with the Belarusian president, Alexandr Lukashenko, to turn the columns around, after reaching agreements that do not bring much benefit to the Wagnerites or their boss, just to “avoid a bloodshed.”
Even as the most professional units are now fighting in the Ukraine, many wonder how the Wagnerites were able to get so far and whether it was a weakness of the Russian military command or a deliberate decision to allow negotiations between Prigozhin and Lukashenko.
Russia returns to “normal”
Meanwhile, Russia slowly returns to a strange “normality”, shaken for almost 24 hours by this unprecedented uprising that was practically not reflected in the life of the capital, despite the threat that was advancing in its direction, and very lukewarmly in the media. Russian press.
After Prigozhin left Rostov-on-Don on Saturday night and disappeared from the press, supposedly heading for Belarus, the Wagnerites began to leave the city to cheers on one side and boos on the other.
Despite the fact that the Wagner Group led a rebellion described by the Kremlin as treason and a “stab in the back”, many Russians see in this paramilitary formation heroes who have brought victories to Russian weapons and who confront the bureaucracy, which It generates mixed feelings in the population.
The governor of the Voronezh region, Alexandr Gusev, reported that the Wagner columns crossed the territory back to their bases “normally and without excesses.”
In neighboring Lipetsk, where the Wagnerites also passed, the authorities assured that they are working on the gradual restoration of traffic on the roads, blocked the day before with trucks or ditches.
Chechen fighters from the Akhmat unit, sent to Rostov to put down the uprising, also returned to their bases in Ukraine, said Chechen commander Apti Alaudinov, to “continue their missions to liberate Marinka” in the east of the country.
The uprising, seen from outside
The international community reacted in different ways to the uprising: the G7 foreign ministers agreed to “coordinate with regard to the situation in Russia”, while the EU will analyze the events in Luxembourg on Monday, all in the context of military aid to Ukraine.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic described giving the Wagner group so much power as “a big Russian mistake”, since “some businessmen as soon as they grab millions think they should order the state and the world. And they think that they have achieved everything without help from the State”.
There was also no shortage of allies of the Kremlin in Latin America: the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, sent a message of solidarity to Putin, while the Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, celebrated that the Kremlin emerged “victorious” from this situation.