Russia: conspiracies at the top of the state, this tradition since Ivan the Terrible

The spectacular accusations of the boss of the mercenary company Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, against the Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, say a lot about the tension between the clans that share power in Moscow: Prigozhin appeals to Russian public opinion to destabilize an intimate of Putin, and this with impunity. Is he thinking of turning against the Kremlin host? Could it become, on the contrary, "the last line of defense of the cornered Russian president", as envisaged by historian Galia Ackerman, who writes nothing lightly? "If the regime begins to falter and the ruling clans try to free themselves from presidential tutelage, Prigozhin could have a key role to play," argues the historian. The possibility of a conspiracy against Putin, of a coup d'état, does not leave people's minds, because the history of Russia is prodigal of it. And palace revolutions also took place under the Soviet regime.

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