MOSCOW In the capital of Russia, there was great but almost silent confusion on Midsummer.
The Russian elite was probably in the dark about what the Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin the rush towards the capital and the core of Russian power meant.
There’s a reason for that.
President Vladimir Putin has concentrated decision-making in a very small circle, especially during the war of aggression in Ukraine. Politicians, civil servants and business influencers outside of it can only guess what is going on.
And that’s why the members of the elite are still “in a state of silent shock”, although they have sighed with relief, estimates a political researcher who is well acquainted with the circles of high-ranking officials and economic influencers in Russia Tatyana Stanovaya in his tweet.
Many are now struggling with how fragile the whole “structure” has turned out to be, Stanovaja writes in the message service.
The big open question is how much information the Russian security apparatus had in advance about Prigozhin’s intentions.
General By Sergei Surovikin fate suggests that information was circulating in the armed forces.
And how much did the Russian elite really fear Putin’s collapse?
Information published by investigative journalists in Russia sheds further light on what reportedly happened behind the scenes. We will talk about them in this story.
Politicians were waiting for instructions from the Kremlin
Attention was drawn to the silence of the Russian elite when things started to happen in the country.
Journalist Yekaterina Vinokurova writes on the RTVI news websitethat during the sleepless night between Friday and Saturday, the members of the elite nervously communicated with each other: It must be a cunning information operation, which the uninitiated have not been told about.
In the Russian ruling class on Saturday morning there was astonishment about what is happening and how it is possible, are writing journalists Farida Rustamova and Maksim Tovkailo .
– Everyone is beaten in the head and doomscrolling, a high-ranking interlocutor from close to the government circles described the mood.
– We didn’t even get any internal information. “Nobody understands what’s going on and what to do,” a federal official told reporters.
The first instructions began to trickle out from the Russian leadership on Saturday morning.
According to Vinokurova’s information, the Kremlin instructed the following about public appearances: support the president, talk about unity and condemn the rebels.
Rustamova and Tovkailo also say that from around 10 o’clock, calls were made to the governors, MPs and senators from Staraja ploshchad, i.e. the presidential administration.
So they had to publicly express their support for the president.
However, the representative of the regional administration interviewed by the journalists says that they had already started making a video before the call to reassure the citizens.
There is no open support for the rebellion from the elite
Politicians were quick to condemn Prigozhin as a traitor – even though many of them had just moments before spoken words of praise about Prigozhin and opened Wagner centers with him.
Svetlana Vinokurova writes that no one in the Russian elite was ready to seriously support the rebellion, even privately.
On the other hand, no one was ready to publicly oppose it more than what was required in the theses sent from Moscow.
In any case, the situation was tense.
An interlocutor belonging to the upper management of a state-owned company told Rustamova and Tovkailo that a meeting was held in their office in central Moscow regarding the uprising.
At the meeting, employees with military experience were asked to patrol the street and alley in front of the office.
Weapons were distributed to those who went on patrol, and the head of the agency announced that the terrorists would be resisted to the last bullet.
On the other hand, not all employees of government agencies and companies were in the grip of terror: many civil servants and managers spent the weekend quite normally, for example at their dachas, Rustamova and Tovkailo say.
The planes of the oligarchs took off from Moscow
Information about the movements of members of the elite may tell something about the erosion of trust in the Russian leadership.
For example, the investigative journalism publication Važnye Istorii, or iStories caught attention to flights leaving Moscow on Saturday, when Prigozhin’s rebellion was at its hottest.
Deputy Prime Minister of the richest man in the Russian government Denis Manturov The Suhoi Superjet jet flew from Moscow at seven in the morning to Dalaman, Turkey.
Putin’s friend, businessman Arkady Rotenberg the Bombardier BD-700 jet left before noon for Azerbaijan. However, this flight was already planned for Friday.
An oligarch by Vladimir Potanin The Gulfstream G650 jet, on the other hand, left Moscow after five o’clock in the afternoon.
It is not known who was on board the planes, but the impression was created that the Russian business elite did not trust Putin’s ability to protect them.
Journalists Rustamova and Tovkailo also say that civil servants, managers of state enterprises and their families started booking plane tickets from Moscow already on Friday evening.
– Everyone is frantically looking for tickets, even to St. Petersburg, a close acquaintance of an oligarch told reporters.
The fact that the speaker of the lower house of the Russian Parliament, the Duma Vyacheslav Volodin demands an explanation of which government officials flew out of the country.
– We all condemn those who left the country at a difficult time, Volodin said Vedomosti magazine by.
By itself, the escape of the oligarchs would not bring down Putin’s regime. Putin’s security apparatus has clipped the wings of big businessmen and subordinated them to the vertical of Putin’s power long ago.
Much more relevant is how Russia’s vast and multi-layered security apparatus reacted to Prigozhin’s rebellion.
Prigozhin may have hoped for support from the armed forces
Važnye Istorii publication also toldthat the security services had started moving secret documents out of Moscow on Saturday.
According to investigative journalists, the matter was told by a former employee of the security services who has connections with his colleagues in office.
If the information is correct, even the siloviks, i.e. the power users of the state’s violence apparatus, felt uncertain about the outcome of Prigozhin’s rebellion project.
Did Prigozhin perhaps have friends within the armed forces? At least he seems to have hoped so.
It is very likely that there is frustration in the armed forces, Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigun and the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov to leadership.
Prigozhin probably tried to use this to his advantage.
Political scientist Mikhail Komin evaluate in his writing On the website of the Carnegie Foundation, Prigozhin has tried to win over to his side generals and other officers who are dissatisfied with the current leadership and who rose in their careers during the previous defense minister’s term.
Prigozhin has suggested a few names to replace Shoigu and Gerasimov.
Chief Wagner has said he would like to see him as Minister of Defense Mikhail Mizintsev and Sergei Surovikin as Chief of the General Staff.
Mizintsev led troops in the siege of Mariupol, and Surovikin gained a reputation for his tough tactics in the Syrian civil war, so they have been called the “Butcher of Mariupol” and the “Butcher of Syria” respectively.
The case of Surovik
The New York Times writethat according to US intelligence it was General Surovikin who had advance knowledge of Prigozhin’s plans.
Surovikin appeared on Saturday after the start of the Wagner rebellion in a video in which he called on the Wagner fighters to obey the president and return to their camps.
Late Wednesday night The Moscow Times told on his websitethat General Surovik would have been arrested as well.
If the information is true, it would be the first acknowledgment by the Russian administration that the coup project also extends to the ranks of the official armed forces.
This, in turn, would indicate that Prigozhin’s rebellion was more dangerous for the Kremlin than previously known.
The siloviki might have received a dangerous signal
Journalists familiar with the Russian security services Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan are writing On the Meduza news sitethat while the rebellion was going on, the generals asked themselves an important question:
Who would Putin blame for the bloodshed – his old friend Prigozhin or the generals?
When the rebellion ended with a secret deal between Prigozhin and Putin, it sent a dangerous message to the armed forces and security agencies for Putin.
The siloviki, to whom Putin has entrusted the security of himself and his regime, learned an important lesson: it is better not to get involved in a conflict in Putin’s inner circle.
How is the president now going to lean on people who have become aware of this? Soldatov and Borogan ask in their article on the Meduza news website.
Civil officials interviewed by Tovkailo and Rustamova also expressed their frustration with the actions of Putin, his security services and soldiers.
Many felt it was shameful that the rebels could act with impunity. The interlocutors used expressions such as banana republic and circus.
The crisis over the weekend seems to be leading to the heavy weaponry and tanks badly needed by the armed forces in Ukraine being transferred to the Rosgvardija, or National Guard. Its central function is to combat internal threats.
The matter was announced yesterday by Putin’s confidant Viktor Zolotovwho leads the National Guard.
The PR people turned their sled
Prigozhin’s rebellion also meant that propaganda professionals had to quickly change their line. In the past, they have praised the Wagner soldiers, and many have also praised Yevgeny Prigozhin.
For example, the editor-in-chief of the state-owned RT media company Margarita Simonyan was silent for a long time before commenting on the incident.
Simonjan reasoned his silence with the explanation that he had been on the set of the film and heard about what happened only after returning.
Meduza news site tells that he got hold of the Kremlin’s instructions on how the rebellion should be handled in the state-owned and loyal media.
According to the paper, the instructions are as follows:
The mercenaries who participated in the mixed repression, the smut, should be called fake patriots, rebels and traitors, and the security forces the real defenders of Russia.
In addition, it should be emphasized that Russian fighters consider Putin to be the real leader. Putin, on the other hand, sees his army as the reliable pillar of the country.
In his speeches on Saturday morning and Tuesday, Putin assured that attempts to return Russia to the time of turmoil (smuta, smutnoje vremja) will not succeed. It refers to the period of 1598–1613, when the Russian Empire temporarily collapsed.
After the confusing events of the weekend, many people in Russia may think that Putin and his inner circle have already brought Russia into a state of chaos.
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