Members of Russia's elite have questioned Russian president Vladimir Putin's judgment in the aftermath of the short-lived armed rebellion mounted last month by his former caterer and Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, senior Western officials said at an annual security conference this week.
DID PRIGOZHIN HAVE INSIDE HELP?
Many observers argue that Prigozhin wouldn’t have been able to take over military facilities in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don so easily on June 24 and mount his rapid march toward Moscow without collusion with some members of the military brass.
Thousands of members of his private army drove nearly 1,000 kilometers (about 620 miles) across Russia without facing any serious resistance and shot down at least seven military aircraft, killing at least 10 airmen.
Prigozhin said they got as close as 200 kilometers (about 125 miles) from Moscow when he ordered them to turn back under a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. That agreement granted amnesty to him and forces from his Wagner Group of private contractors, allowing them to move to Belarus.
Some Kremlin watchers believe senior military officers could have backed his push for the ouster of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the chief of the General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov. Or they simply decided to wait and see what happened.
“The Wagner mercenary boss was counting on solidarity from senior army officers, and since he came close to reaching Moscow without encountering any particular resistance, he might not have been completely mistaken,” analyst Mikhail Komin wrote in a commentary for Carnegie Endowment.
“It’s entirely possible that by the start of his ‘march for justice,’ Prigozhin believed he would find solidarity among many officers in the armed forces, and that if his uprising was successful, they would be joined by certain groups within the ruling elite.”
Russian law enforcement agencies might share this belief. Some military bloggers reported that investigators were looking at whether some officers had sided with Prigozhin.
One senior military official, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, who had longtime ties with Prigozhin, is believed to have been detained, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press, citing U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence assessments. It’s not clear whether Surovikin faces any charges or where he is being held.
Russian military bloggers reported that some border guards were accused of failing to put up resistance to Wagner’s convoy as it crossed into Russia from Ukraine, and some pilots also are facing possible charges for refusing to halt the convoy movement toward Moscow.
Pro-Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov said some in the Russian military might have been reluctant to confront Prigozhin initially but their attitude hardened after Wagner forces downed several military helicopters.
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