Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies seek to recast Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s abortive uprising as a demonstration of Russia’s unity behind the Kremlin.
“The level of consolidation of society, political parties, the military, our servicemen, civil and religious figures, believers and so on around the president is very high,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday, per state media. “These events have shown how consolidated society is around the president.”
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Putin struck a similar note in a separate appearance before Russian Defense Ministry officials whom he credited with staving off "total chaos and civil war,” one day after describing even the majority of the Wagner Group fighters who marched toward Moscow as “patriots.” Yet that posture was belied by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, who portrayed Russian society as a tinderbox while taking credit for averting the crisis.
“If God forbid, this mutiny spreads all over Russia (and the prerequisites for this were colossal), we will be next,” Lukashenko said Tuesday, per Belarusian state media. “I ask myself the question: Is everything so good in Russia and here? It is not. There are multiple reasons for this turmoil to spread across Russia and spill over into our country. A trigger was needed. And it emerged.”
Prigozhin’s seizure of a major military command in southern Russia and then his rapid progress toward Moscow — the paramilitary force halted about 120 miles from Moscow, according to the Wagner Group chief — exposed Russian authorities to more embarrassment. The warlord formerly known as “Putin’s chef” boasted that their sprint revealed “very serious security problems” inside Russia.
“We gave a master class on how it should have been done on Feb. 24, 2022 [when Russia invaded Ukraine],” Prigozhin said on social media after breaking off the operation. “We did not have the goal of overthrowing the existing regime and the legally elected government.”
Prigozhin wasn’t the only one to draw an unfavorable analogy between the course of the uprising in Russia and the war in Ukraine, as the Wagner Group chief did not encounter resistance of the sort that Ukrainian civilians presented to Russian invaders.
“What they have done in Russia, they have now for generations tried to raise a passive people ... suddenly, now during this weekend they realized that those people are passive also towards Putin,” a senior European official observed. “This was the scenario that they calculated would happen in Ukraine. But in Ukraine, people started to make Molotov cocktails. They got Kalashnikov machine guns to resist.”
Russian officials justified their failure to thwart Prigozhin’s march at the outset as a conscious decision to prioritize the protection of the capital.
“We concentrated all the forces precisely on the approaches to Moscow, because if we scattered the grouping, they would have just moved through like a knife through butter,” Russian National Guard Director Viktor Zolotov said Tuesday, per state media.
The showdown between Prigozhin’s Wagner Group columns and the security forces loyal to Putin was avoided by the Belarusian strongman’s intervention, Lukashenko said, as he gave a version of events that portrayed Putin as having misjudged the possibility of negotiating a peaceful end to the crisis.
“I also realized that a tough decision was taken (Putin hinted at it in his address) — to eliminate those involved. I suggested that Putin should not rush to do it,” Lukashenko said Tuesday. “I suggested that I talk to Prigozhin, his commanders. Putin replied: ‘Listen, it's useless. He doesn't even pick up the phone, he doesn't want to talk to anyone.’"
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Putin expressed gratitude to “Lukashenko for his efforts and contribution to the peaceful settlement of the situation” on Monday after thanking the Wagner Group rank and file for standing down. Yet the performance didn’t satisfy Wagner Group communities on social media.
"I wanted the president to resolve the situation and not just declare that they were rebels and traitors," a woman in a Telegram chat for Wagner Group relatives wrote on social media, per Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. "But for some reason, a third party settled the conflict. In the end, our president is not Lukashenka."