The morning after Wagner's last opera, there are quite a few open questions and points worth considering.
1. The farewell of residents of Rostov to Wagner's forces during the night was an amazing sight. The residents hugged the mercenaries, took selfies with them and applauded. This celebration only highlighted the chilly welcome to the police who returned to patrol the city after Wagner's departure and were greeted with scorn. Presumably, this dynamic tells us a thing or two about the true level of support for Putin and the system of corruption around him.
Rostov residents hug Wagner | Rostov Galvany
Since the beginning of the year, Wagner's founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has cultivated for himself the image of a popular tribune, who says without blinking everything he thinks about the conduct of the war by the military elite, has added countless lashings against the elite around Putin, and does not seem to have missed public opinion. It seems that the rate of support for Prigozhin and Wagner – an organization that committed war crimes and whose direct commander, Utkin, is an outspoken neo-Nazi – is not low at all. At least in part, this is support because they are a kind of anti-Shoigu and perhaps even collective anti-Putin.
Rostov residents against police | Rostov Galvany
2. Why did Lukashenko, the dictator of a neighboring country, have to negotiate with Prigozhin? Couldn't there be a single person in the Kremlin leadership (official or enlarged) who could talk to a rebel from within? Or was everyone in shock waiting for what the trip to Moscow would bring? I'm not alluding here to any conspiracy, but to a strange situation in which an outside party has to mediate a mini-civil war with the neighbors. The Kremlin has officially claimed that Lukashenko offered himself and was accepted, but that still does not remove the question. Finally, it was agreed that the case opened for Prigozhin for sedition would be closed, and he would be transferred to Belarus. "Putin's word," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. But precisely because of this "word", instead of Prigozhin I would check carefully before every trip under the car. Putin, who was publicly humiliated for an entire day, will not quickly forgive sticking a knife in the back of the nation. The "nation" in the form of Vladimir Vladimirovich also has knives to stick.
Prigozhin bids farewell to Rostov as a hero | Social Networks
Belarusian President Lukashenko and Russian President Putin, Photo: AP
3. The third - what caused Prigozhin to withdraw at the last minute? He could have entered Moscow, and while it is still hard to believe, he could even enter the Kremlin. Why? Because in practice there were not enough forces to stand against him or want to fight for Defense Minister Shoigu, despite the operation of the air force (and the loss of six helicopters and a plane while trying to stop the columns). Was he frightened? Was he told anything that was more important to him than making the most of the move? Maybe the move got out of hand for him as well, and this exhaustion itself deterred him, when he suddenly realized that he could really find himself in the Kremlin? He may have also been promised the ouster of Shoigu and Gerasimov – which was his goal from the outset – and the appointment of his men, Tula regional governor Alexei Dyomin and General Sergei Surovikin (who commanded the forced withdrawal from Kherson) to the posts of minister and chief of staff, respectively. Such assessments exist, and there is also a claim that Diumin - once Putin's security guard - was a mediator in the talks (he denies). But even their appointment does not guarantee Prigozhin's safety. A better guarantee for him, by the way, is his importance to Wagner's activities in Africa (but that's another affair).
Wagner armed forces in Rostov, photo: AP
And for dessert: it was amusing to follow the bluster that took place in Russia around the uprising and its surprising ending. In the morning, branded or Wagner-affiliated products began to disappear from chain stores - in the evening they were sold again; In the morning they began to remove Wagner's advertisements on the billboards - and wonder if they will now start hanging again; One St. Petersburg website posted articles about what was being searched at Wagner's headquarters in the city — and in the evening quickly deleted them. In the morning Prigozhin was symbolically executed - and in the evening he was "resurrected". By the way, among the things found in his office at the Terezini Hotel in Petersburg were three forged passports. And on that note, we will also groan - meet Prigozhin's three personas: Vladimir Vasilyevich Bobrov, Oleg Yuryevich Semyonov and Dmitry Isakovich Geyler. Because how is it possible without a Jewish surname when one day it is possible to try to immigrate to Israel according to the grandson clause?
Prigozhin's three forged passports,
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