Russia: Prigozhin's military mutiny is a heavy blow to the Putin regime
Oleg VERNIK, Chairman of the Independent Trade Union of Ukraine «Zahist Pratsi» – Socialist League of Ukraine
The rapid events of the military rebellion and the "Moscow liberation campaign" of the Wagner Private Military Company and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, he 23 Y 24 June 2023, they were unexpected only for those who did not follow the development of the situation in Russia on the Ukrainian front in recent months. The mutiny was getting closer every day in the development of a dramatic situation for the Russian occupation army on the front lines.. One must consider the facts and events that preceded Prigozhin's actions.
From the very beginning of the armed imperialist aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine the 24 February 2022, the development of the so-called "special military operation" did not go as planned. The Russian army focused on "blitzkrieg" and did not initially expect to get bogged down in a difficult war. The resistance of the Ukrainian people and the army, unexpectedly for Putin, he broke his plans. At the end of March 2022, extremely difficult relations arose between Putin and the leadership of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Federation. Putin has stopped fully trusting his army generals. For the history of the USSR and the Federation, this is a very old and traditional situation of confrontation between the KGB and the army. Putin comes from the Soviet State Security Committee (KGB) Y, Thus, initially distrusted the Russian military, since he saw them as a traditional threat to his power. Thus, in many ways, appointed a person close to him to the post of Minister of Defense, that he had never been associated with the army and that he came from the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
At the end of March 2022, Putin's former chef, and now a great Russian businessman, Yevgeny Prigozhin, used to hang out with putin. Before this, Prigozhin spent many years in Russian prisons for theft, fraud, involvement of a minor in criminal activity and theft. After his release from prison, Prigozhin started his business in Saint Petersburg and became close to Putin, who is also a native of the “second capital of Russia”. Over time, Prigozhin created his own private army, which showed an important part of its activity in Africa. Prigozhin's fighters protected many leaders of African countries, seized lucrative businesses in Africa from competitors of Russian capital. The military structures of PMC «Wagner» were seen in: the Central African Republic of Mali, Libya, Sudan, Mozambique, Guinea and several other African countries. The "best moment" for Prigozhin and his "private military company" was participation in the civil war in Syria, on the side of the pro-Russian dictator Assad. Parallel to this, Prigozhin developed his business in Russia and became the main supplier of food for the Russian army..
In the starting situation, extremely unsuccessful of the war in Ukraine and Putin's dissatisfaction with the actions of Russian generals, Prigozhin managed to convince Putin that it was necessary to use his Wagner unit on the Ukrainian front because it was the most trained, with combatants endowed with military experience. Putin agreed with this idea and considered that the Wagner would become a kind of alternative to the Russian army at the front under his personal control.. Since the beginning of April 2022, Wagner's units left Syria and Africa and reached the Donetsk region and entered the war on the side of the Russian aggressor. Prigozhin received assurances from Putin that, first, his “Wagner private military company” would receive military shells and ammunition. for april 2022, Wagner had his own tanks, armored vehicles and even their own aircraft. Nevertheless, Wagner's front-line achievements were quite modest. After a long fight, Prigozhin took the city of Popasnaya in the Donetsk region and approached the city of Bakhmut.
The struggle for a small town in the Donetsk region, Bakhmut, it lasted more than nine months and became one of the bloodiest for the Russian side. Prigozhin promised Putin that he would take Bakhmut, fairly quickly and would open the way to the occupation of the entire Donetsk region, but the situation became more complicated. The competition between Wagner and the Russian military for influence over Putin did not end. For February 2023, in the midst of the battles for Bakhmut, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation stopped supplying shells to the Wagner group on a priority basis and matched this supply with ordinary units of the Russian army. Prigozhin considered this a violation of his agreements with Putin and launched a harsh information attack against the leaders of the Russian army., the defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the chief of staff, Valery Gerasimov.
Nevertheless, in early June 2023, Prigozhin managed to capture almost the entire Bakhmut and announced the transfer of the captured Bakhmut to the forces of the Federation Ministry of Defense, as well as his withdrawal from the city he had captured. Thanks to its solid information resources, Yevgeny Prigozhin, as a hero of the "liberation of Bakhmut" and critic of the bureaucratic leadership of the Russian army, in june 2023 became the most authoritative politician in Russia, as an indicator of its popular recognition.
Prigozhin's criticism of the leadership of the Russian army intensified even more and began to take the character of a sharp social criticism of the entire Russian reality and of the Putin regime.. further, in the hit, Prigozhin carefully separated from criticism of Putin himself, but it was obvious to everyone that the questioning of a completely bureaucratic and rotten system from within could not but hurt the head and the founder of this system, I mean Putin.
Prigozhin asserted: "from 2014 until 2022, the entire Donbas was looted. Donbass was looted by several people: some of them were from the presidential administration, some from the FSB, some were lured by the oligarchs, like Kurchenko. These are the people who stole money from the residents of Donbass”.
Of course, this was already an open challenge. For the first time in Russia, a military and political officer of this level openly admitted that all Putin's tasks in the war with Ukraine had nothing to do with reality. already in the night of 23 of June, Prigozhin accused the "military leadership of the country" of shelling the positions of his formation in the Lugansk region (Ukraine), which resulted in the death of a large number of Wagner's fighters. in response to this, announced that, along with their fighters, would move to Moscow for a "march of justice".
further, the events of the military mutiny unfolded rapidly. Prigozhin announced that 25.000 Wagner fighters were participating in the march on Moscow. This, Of course, it was a very exaggerated number. Actually, according to military analysts, about 5-6 thousand from the Wagner combat base and about 5-6 a thousand ex-prisoners who joined Wagner during the Russo-Ukrainian war participated in the campaign towards Moscow.
In the morning of 24 of June, the FSB opened a criminal case against Prigozhin for "calling an armed rebellion". Prigozhin was threatened with up to 20 years in prison. And Putin addressed the people with a statement that Prigozhin is “a traitor who stabbed him in the back”. At the same time, Wagner's columns left the territory of the Ukraine the same morning of the 24 June and entered the territory of Russia. The border guards did not resist the movement of Prigozhin's columns and were quite loyal to the rebel unit. Literally, a few hours later, during the "march of justice", Wagner's fighters entered the city of Rostov and occupied the headquarters of the "Southern Military District" without resistance. It should be noted that ordinary citizens of Russia in Rostov received Wagner quite kindly, many of them perceived the armed rebellion as an opportunity to get rid of, long-term, of the authoritarian government and the oligarchic elite.
Seeing that the border troops refused to resist Wagner's campaign, the Russian command used helicopter gunships and planes against Prigozhin's columns. Wagner shot down a Russian IL-22 military plane (killing the 8 people) and a KA-52 "Alligator" attack helicopter (killing the 5 pilots). According to unconfirmed reports, several Russian combat helicopters were shot down, leaving half of his unit in Rostov. The convoy moved as fast as possible along the M-4 highway towards Moscow., trying to avoid major regional centers.
It is noteworthy that all the time panic reigned in the Kremlin. Several high-ranking officials fled on personal planes.. Putin flew to St. Petersburg. At the same time, called requested the support and dispatch of armed units from CSTO state leaders (proruso military block). All CSTO heads of state, including Kazakh President Tokayev refused to send troops. The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, volunteered to be a "negotiator" between the Russian authorities and Prigozhin.
Of course, From the beginning, it was absolutely unrealistic to take Moscow with 5-6 thousand fighters and several tanks. And the fact that the Kremlin elite felt a terrible panic, and the country's defense system was in complete collapse, it only showed in a clear way what the Russian propaganda about the “second army of the world” really is. The complete disintegration and impotence of Putin and his military elite became obvious..
On the night of 24 of June, Lukashenko managed to reach an agreement with Prigozhin. Some points were publicly announced and others, Of course, they remained secret. As a result of negotiations, the "Wagnerites" withdrew their columns and left the city of Rostov in the direction of their camps. It was promised to close the criminal case against Prigozhin. Prigozhin himself will be able to go live in Belarus under Lukashenko's guarantees. Wagner fighters participating in the rebellion will not be persecuted, thanks to his frontline merits. A) Yes, the rebellion officially ended the night of 24 al 25 of June.
What are our first conclusions? It is obvious that Prigozhin himself is, just a kind of "acid test" that showed the real state of Putin's Russian authoritarian regime. The pretentious mirage of the regime finally dissipated and, like in the old Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, "and the king turned out to be completely naked". For the broad masses of Russia, literally on the first day of the military uprising, any sacralization of Putin's personality disappeared. Instead of a tough and self-assured imperial politician, for the first time, a miserable and scared to death old man appeared before the broad strata of Russians, that does not fully control the situation in the country. The mass fear factor of the Russian people before Putin disappeared before our very eyes in just one day.
Many, including left-wing analysts, in my opinion, they pay too much attention to the deep motivations and inconsistency in Prigozhin's actions. Of course, no moral and ethical priorities for the competing oligarchic clans of modern Russia. And Prigozhin is not even a typical bourgeois politician. His relationship with Putin and his clique is based on his being one of them himself, and his fight for "a place in the sun" is painted less in political or ideological colors., but in a banal division of goods and properties. That is to say, his main motivation is not political, but commercial. Hence the explanation of his opportunism and refusal to continue the attack on Moscow.. Probably Putin, via Lukashenko, was able to make such a business offer to Prigozhin, that satisfied him completely, even despite the obvious loss of his rating. His justification for refusing to attack the Kremlin because he "does not want to spill Russian blood" is laughable and absurd. Raising a military mutiny, it is obvious that you understand in advance that you are going to war with the regime. Prigozhin, with his socially oriented rhetoric, greatly raised the level of expectations of ordinary Russians, and it will be more painful, once again, feeling disappointed with the politicians of the big capitalist companies. Prigozhin is in the camp of Russian “ultra-patriots” as a militaristic chauvinist wing.
but for us, an entirely different aspect is important in the analysis. Even in the harsh trade conflicts of Russia's capitalist elites, they are forced to turn to difficult social issues and “score points” precisely because of criticism of Putin's system. And the most important, the presence of appeals to the broad masses of the people for social justice and the fight against Putin's oligarchy. That is to say, the degree of discontent in Russia is already very high, and people like Prigozhin still literally raise it to the level of the beginning of a mass revolutionary protest. Even based on their business interests…
We are awaiting the development of this situation and we remember very well that the Russian working class has not yet said its last word....
