- 6/25/2023
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 The mutiny is over in Russia.
00:04 The boss of the Wagner mercenary group agreeing to halt his advance on Moscow and leave the
00:09 country with a short revolt raising questions about Vladimir Putin's authority, Russian
00:15 security and intelligence failures.
00:19 It remains to be seen if there will be any effects on the battlefield.
00:23 Russia claims it had no impact on its operations in Ukraine, but Keeve saying the unrest did
00:28 offer a window of opportunity as it carries on with its long awaited counter offensive.
00:34 The EU, UK and US leaders monitoring the situation closely, American intelligence detected signs
00:40 of a revolt days in advance.
00:42 Spy agencies said that the internal struggle was caused by the war in Ukraine, a product
00:48 of Russia's struggle to supply its troops adequately.
00:54 Hello and welcome to this special report on the fallout of this weekend's chaos in Russia.
01:00 Vladimir Putin's most serious challenge yet is two decades in power did not come from
01:04 the opposition, Ukraine or its allies, but instead from inside the Russian war machine
01:09 itself.
01:10 Now the mutiny is over.
01:12 In a span of some 24 hours, Evgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, went
01:17 from leading an armed revolt to leaving the country.
01:20 The Kremlin saying he and his troops will not be prosecuted.
01:24 They must return to their base while he goes to Belarus.
01:28 The deal was negotiated by Belarus's leader, Alexander Lukashenko.
01:31 And while the crisis may have been diffused, it's raised questions over Putin's authority
01:36 and his justification for the war in Ukraine.
01:38 Yanko Yatade has more.
01:40 To a chorus of cheers and rounds of applause, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group,
01:47 Evgeny Prigozhin, bids the residents of Rostov-on-Don goodbye.
01:52 His departure marks an end to a dramatic standoff that saw the Wagner group seize the southern
01:57 city that is a military hub for the Russian army.
02:01 It's another U-turn for Prigozhin.
02:03 Earlier, just hours after announcing a march on Moscow, the Wagner boss ordered his troops
02:08 abandon the assault.
02:09 "On June 23rd, we left for the justice march.
02:15 In 24 hours, we made all this progress.
02:19 We are 200 kilometers from Moscow.
02:27 Understanding the risk that Russian blood could be shed on either side, our men are
02:32 turning back the other way and returning to their temporary base camps according to plan."
02:42 The 180 could be thanks to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
02:47 His office claims he negotiated a deal with the Wagner boss, who then agreed to halt his
02:51 troops' advance.
02:54 Lukashenko's close ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin, has praised the leader for
02:58 his apparent efforts.
03:00 The announcement marks a de-escalation in a crisis that many feared could spiral into
03:04 a devastating conflict between the Russian army and Prigozhin's forces.
03:11 In an address to the nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin described the Wagner group's
03:15 actions as a stab in the back to Russia.
03:18 "All those who deliberately embarked on the path of betrayal, who prepared an armed rebellion,
03:24 embarked on the path of blackmail and terrorist methods, will suffer inevitable punishment.
03:30 We'll answer both before the law and before our people."
03:34 The confrontation follows months of tensions between Russian defence officials and the
03:39 Wagner group.
03:40 Prigozhin had demanded that Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu step down.
03:45 The Wagner boss also called on both Shoigu and the Chief of the General Staff, Valery
03:49 Gerasimov, to come and see him in Rostov-on-Don.
03:54 He accuses the two men of having orchestrated an air raid attack on his forces, which the
03:58 Kremlin denies.
04:00 The mercenaries have played a crucial role in Russia's war in Ukraine.
04:04 But Prigozhin has increasingly criticised Russia's military leaders.
04:12 Following the retreat, the Kremlin says they'll drop a criminal case against the Wagner chief.
04:17 Russian authorities also claim Prigozhin will move to Belarus as part of the deal.
04:24 Details remain hazy.
04:25 For more, let's speak to Nick Holdsworth, France 24's former correspondent in Moscow.
04:29 Nick, nice to speak to you again.
04:32 First I saw Prigozhin's location and that of Putin's remain unknown.
04:36 What is the situation in Russia?
04:40 Just as you've said, we don't know where President Vladimir Putin is and we're not exactly sure
04:46 where Yevgeny Prigozhin is today.
04:50 He has agreed to go to Belarus in that deal brokered by Lukashenko, the president of Belarus.
04:57 And the Russian authorities, through Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, have said that criminal
05:02 charges against him for the armed mutiny will be dropped.
05:07 They'll also be dropped against any of his men who took part in that insurrection.
05:15 And those who didn't take part in it would be offered new contracts with the Russian
05:19 military itself.
05:21 At the moment, it's really very unclear quite what is going on.
05:24 The security alert in Moscow remains in force, which basically restricts the movement of
05:30 people around the city.
05:32 And tomorrow is still a non-working day.
05:34 That was yesterday declared by the mayor of Moscow, Sobyanin.
05:39 That's all we know at the moment.
05:41 Quite why Putin has not appeared and said anything at all about this new deal is unclear.
05:47 It would be speculation to suggest that there may be further problems within the Russian
05:54 power elite.
05:55 But certainly, Prigozhin's actions Friday and Saturday have exposed major fractures
06:02 in the Kremlin.
06:03 Yeah.
06:04 And Nick, just on a personal note, you've been covering Russia for a long time now.
06:08 What did, did you ever even consider that Putin's biggest threat to power would come
06:12 from within?
06:14 I've been expecting something like this for quite a few months.
06:19 Some of the other foreign commentators have said that they doubt there would be some kind
06:24 of civil insurrection or conflict within the power elite.
06:27 But I've been following this very closely and it's quite clear there are different power
06:31 groups.
06:32 In the years that I've covered Russia, the only thing that I can remember that is remotely
06:36 similar to this is August '91, where you had that failed coup.
06:40 It didn't topple Gorbachev.
06:42 He came back from holiday in Crimea, having been under house arrest there.
06:45 But less than four months later, he was gone and the Soviet Union had disappeared.
06:49 This is very much the beginning of a process in Russia.
06:53 Again, I don't like to make predictions.
06:57 And at the same time, there are definite fractures between the security services, the military,
07:04 these freelance agencies like Wagner's, there are other private armies in Russia too.
07:08 And then of course, there are the oligarchs, the people who provide money for Putin, his
07:13 operations.
07:14 And it's also very unclear who was behind Prigozhin.
07:18 Was there somebody who was financing him, had an interest in what he was doing and quite
07:22 why that deal was struck and whether that deal really offers any guarantees at all to
07:27 Prigozhin and his men.
07:28 Yeah.
07:29 Let's speak more about that deal.
07:30 Joining us on the line from Belgrade is Mark Tominicki, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic
07:34 Council's Eurasia Center.
07:36 Hello to you, Mark.
07:38 Just wondering, what did you make of it that as this crisis played out under Vladimir Putin's
07:42 nose on Russian soil, it required him to have international mediation?
07:48 Alexander Lukashenko was supposedly resolving this crisis.
07:51 What does that mean for Putin?
07:53 Thank you, William, for having me.
07:57 So it was very unexpected.
07:59 Putin tried calling leaders from Kazakhstan, Armenia, et cetera, and no one was interested
08:05 in coming to the aid.
08:06 We all know that Lukashenko belongs to many parts of Putin.
08:10 Putin is one of the reasons why he has remained in power within Belarus.
08:13 And it's certainly possible that this was not of goodwill for Lukashenko, but instead
08:18 the Russian government kind of turns to him saying, hey, you deal with this problem because
08:23 we're very overwhelmed.
08:24 We don't know who else to turn to in our time of crisis.
08:27 Presumably overwhelmed because of the heavy losses they've been taking in Ukraine.
08:33 I just think everything in general.
08:35 This was very unexpected that Prigozhin and Wegener was moving into the southern parts
08:41 of Russia and then moving on to Moscow.
08:43 They made a significant distance within 24 hours.
08:46 Some were joking, you know, more than Russia has done within the entire 16 months of the
08:51 war in Ukraine.
08:53 And just wondering what your thought is, Mark, of Putin accusing Prigozhin of treason and
08:58 now he's not going to face any charges.
09:00 Vladimir Putin, not a man used to making U-turns or concessions, compromises.
09:07 How do you think the public in Russia views this sort of end to the chaos this weekend?
09:15 I think that this is far from over.
09:17 I think for now they've come to some sort of agreement.
09:20 It'll be interesting to see what happens to Vigna forces after this, where they will be
09:24 attacking Ukraine.
09:25 Are they moving into the northern part and then entering Ukraine through Belarus?
09:29 Are they going back into the east?
09:31 I think it's very too early to predict.
09:34 The last 24 hours have been very chaotic and no one is certain what will occur next.
09:39 Nick Holdsworth joining us again on the line.
09:42 Nick, Belarus stepping in here, have trouble imagining it was just an altruistic mediation
09:50 effort.
09:51 Do you think they could be getting anything in particular from the Kremlin?
09:54 It's clearly a humiliation for Vladimir Putin.
09:59 Lukashenko has always been seen as the junior partner in that alliance between Russia and
10:07 Belarus.
10:08 Lukashenko is very good at extracting concessions, cheap oil, cheap loans, all those sorts of
10:15 things from Moscow and not really giving much in return.
10:18 He often promises a lot and then kind of wriggles his way out.
10:23 Last year he had promised that he would actually supply some Belarusian troops for the strike
10:29 on Ukraine from Belarus and that never happened.
10:32 Now, of course, one of the concerns now is that Gorgin is going in internal exile, if
10:41 you like, to Belarus.
10:43 Does he take some of those 25,000 Wagner troops with him?
10:47 Does that mean that Ukraine now faces a threat from another front from Belarus?
10:54 This was raised this morning by a retired head of the British army, no less.
11:00 It's really unclear what's going to happen, but it's certainly clear that Putin has suffered
11:04 a very powerful blow to his prestige.
11:07 We saw in Rostov last night as Wagner troops began to pull out and Gorgin himself drove
11:13 out of the city.
11:14 We saw residents there cheering and applauding and chanting Wagner, Wagner, Wagner.
11:19 And then when police turned up to take the places on the streets that had been vacated
11:24 by the Wagner troops, they were booed.
11:27 They were shouted at.
11:30 Local residents called them traitors and shouted, shame, shame on you.
11:35 Now that is something which will disturb the Kremlin because Gorgin is clearly a very popular
11:40 figure.
11:41 He's like a folk hero now.
11:43 He is like most Russian people.
11:45 He uses a lot of slang when he speaks.
11:48 He's this kind of macho action man who most of the time does what he says he's going to
11:54 do.
11:55 He's almost like a Russian Robin Hood, if that's not going too far.
11:59 And that kind of popularity, if Putin or if the security services do eventually want to
12:04 move against him and his men, because those guarantees given by the president of Belarus
12:09 are probably not worth the paper they're written on, that could cause more trouble in the future.
12:15 I would say, given what we've seen in Russia over 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet
12:21 Union, the clash between Boris Yeltsin and parliament in October '93, I would say this
12:26 is the beginning of a process, quite possibly the beginning of a shift in power in Russia.
12:33 It would be foolhardy to predict how that may go.
12:36 But this is the start of a process, not the end of a process by any means.
12:39 Well, let's get an idea of the reactions in the war that in the country where Russia launched
12:47 this war, Ukraine.
12:48 Our correspondent, Gulliver Craig, joining us on the line from Kiev.
12:51 Hello to you, Gulliver.
12:54 This fallout, interesting to remember that it began with Prigorin just clarifying about
12:58 what was really happening in Ukraine.
13:00 Tell us more about that.
13:02 Yes, and that, of course, evoked very much mixed feelings on the part of Ukrainians,
13:08 because here was this man, as Nick Holdsworth was just saying, who has a certain notoriety
13:13 and popularity in Russia and who's certainly a very prominent figure, speaking the truth,
13:19 as the Ukrainians have been saying it for years, about what was really going on in Donbass,
13:23 which was skirmishes between Ukrainian and Russian forces and nothing like a Ukrainian
13:28 bombardment of civilian areas or a Ukrainian attempt to eradicate Russian speakers there,
13:34 as the Russian propaganda had tried for all those long years, since 2014, to convince
13:40 the Russian people and the world was the case.
13:42 So there was Evgeny Prigojin coming out saying all the reasons for this war were false, the
13:47 ones ostensibly presented by Vladimir Putin and the rest of the Russian government, which
13:53 was music to the ears of Ukrainians, but nothing coming from the voice of Evgeny Prigojin
13:57 could possibly be music to the ears of Ukrainians, because, of course, Evgeny Prigojin is also
14:02 the man who led Russia's onslaught onto the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, in Donetsk
14:07 region, destroying that city, killing tens of thousands, probably, of Ukrainian fighters,
14:13 thousands of civilians and also tens of thousands, of course, of Russian fighters being killed
14:18 in the process via the tactics of simply throwing them up over the top to basically work out
14:23 where the Ukrainian positions were as cannon fodder.
14:27 So I think it's quite alarming for Ukrainians to hear, though what Nick Holdsworth says
14:31 may well be true, that Evgeny Prigojin is a popular figure in Russia and that many,
14:37 many Russians identify with him, because to Ukrainians he's clearly a war criminal, but
14:42 he's a war criminal whose recent actions, I think it's pretty unanimously held view
14:46 in Ukraine, or certainly the majority opinion, have clearly weakened Vladimir Putin's regime,
14:51 which one way or another can only be a good thing for Ukraine.
14:54 Yeah, and we heard that echoed from Ukraine's President, Vladimir Zelensky, before it was
14:58 announced that Prigojin was halting his march, Vladimir Zelensky saying that it revealed
15:03 that there was complete chaos in Russia.
15:06 Take a listen.
15:07 Today is a day when there should definitely be no silence, and we definitely need leadership.
15:13 Today, the world saw that the bosses of Russia do not control anything, nothing at all, complete
15:20 chaos, complete absence of any predictability.
15:24 And this is happening on Russian territory, which is fully loaded with weapons.
15:29 Gulliver, Ukraine, of course, in the midst of this long-anticipated counteroffensive,
15:34 Ukrainian officials saying that this revolt this weekend seemed to offer some sort of
15:38 window of opportunity.
15:41 Any idea if, when, or how they might try to seize that opportunity?
15:46 Well, of course, that window of opportunity would have been much wider had the fighting
15:52 in Russia gone on and had the Russian armed forces had to redeploy to counter Yevgeny
15:57 Prigojin's people in Rostov-on-Don, for example, or places like that.
16:02 That hasn't materialized, at least not yet, though a lot of people in Ukraine, I think,
16:05 think that this may not actually be over.
16:09 But the Ukrainian authorities are certainly seizing on the opportunity in terms of communications
16:15 to just point out to the world how weak Vladimir Putin looks here, how chaotic Russia looks.
16:20 They've carried on very much in the same line today with Mihailo Podolyak, the senior adviser
16:25 to President Zelensky, posting a tweet saying, "We hope that this episode helps the world
16:30 to understand" -- I'm not quoting verbatim, I'm paraphrasing, but he says that they hope
16:34 that the world will better understand now why Ukraine can't negotiate with Russia, because
16:39 Russia obviously can't be trusted, because it's not even in control of itself, basically.
16:43 All right, Golovor, thank you.
16:45 Oliver Ferry, joining us from our international desk, we talk about Vladimir Putin appearing
16:51 to be weakened or humiliated, as some analysts are saying.
16:55 What do you think this means either for him or for Prigojin and Wagner moving forward?
17:00 Well, Putin is definitely weakened.
17:02 He's humiliated.
17:04 He is probably not going to be overthrown overnight.
17:08 But I think we could be seeing the start of a possibly long decline for Vladimir Putin.
17:16 We noticed that Vladimir Putin has actually been silent since this deal was announced,
17:21 but so has Yevgeny Prigojin, who is normally not short of saying a few words, particularly
17:29 on his various social media channels.
17:32 One of his social media channels is actually a business page on the Russian social media
17:37 site VKontakte, which was shut down by the Russian government yesterday.
17:41 But his telegram channels and Wagner's telegram channels are still up.
17:45 There was also 43 million euros in cash seized by Russian investigators at Wagner headquarters.
17:54 That is unlikely to be returned to him.
17:57 But I imagine Wagner, which has offices all over the world, have fairly deep pockets,
18:02 and they've probably put a lot of money out of the reach of the Russian government.
18:09 Will they continue fighting in Ukraine?
18:12 They may not be welcomed back into the fold to fight alongside Russian soldiers, considering
18:17 that they did actually rise up against the army.
18:20 Yevgeny Prigojin does have quite a lot of support among the rank and file, but they
18:26 may not necessarily welcome him back.
18:30 Now, there's also talk, as Nick was saying, of possibly launching an attack on Kiev from
18:36 Belarus, if they are—if, indeed, the 25,000 Wagner soldiers are going to join Yevgeny
18:43 Prigojin there.
18:44 That's a possibility, but certainly it would not be as easy as just rolling across
18:49 the border into eastern Ukraine, which is what they did previously.
18:55 There is certainly something about Yevgeny Prigojin.
18:58 He's definitely not a winner in this.
19:00 I mean, he has lost as well.
19:03 He is being exiled.
19:05 He potentially—he's probably safe for the moment, but that may not last.
19:09 It's probably going to be quite easy for the Kremlin to get at him, if they so wish.
19:14 And he's also more or less lost his gambit with Wagner, because the Wagner troops, who
19:23 are not actually involved in yesterday's fighting, that they will actually have to
19:29 sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, which is something that he has
19:33 been resolutely opposed to for the past few weeks.
19:37 So basically, the Ministry of Defense has pushed that through without effectively a
19:43 fight on that.
19:44 And Wagner personnel themselves might feel betrayed by Yevgeny Prigojin, because he talked
19:49 this up an awful lot, and then all of a sudden he said that he was stopping, and we haven't
19:55 heard from him since.
19:56 So there's definitely a loss to ponder there.
20:01 I mean, this is basically the definition of Kremlinology, but we are all more or less
20:06 poking in the dark here to try and figure out what any of all this means.
20:10 Yeah, we haven't heard from Prigojin since.
20:13 We did just get some alerts from Russia's Vladimir Putin saying he gives special top
20:18 priority to the special military operation, of course referring to the war in Ukraine.
20:23 Let's speak to our correspondent, Keeve, once again.
20:25 Gulliver, the wire is coming in saying that Russia has repelled attacks in Donetsk and
20:29 Zaporizhia.
20:31 Just wondering what the latest fighting is that you're following on the front line there?
20:35 Well, the latest news that I have in terms of confirmed news coming from the Ukrainian
20:41 authorities was Hanna Malia, the deputy defense minister, saying that the Ukrainians had launched
20:46 what she described as, I think, large scale offensive operations in the east of the country,
20:52 particularly around Bakhmut.
20:53 She mentioned several villages, the territory of several villages that are close to Bakhmut
20:59 in Donetsk region, saying that the Ukrainians had started a push there, which is a big development
21:05 because previously this counter offensive has been focused on the southern front, the
21:10 Zaporizhia region and the southwestern part of Donetsk region.
21:15 Although the Ukrainians have for many weeks been trying to encircle Bakhmut, what they've
21:19 been saying lately after the counter offensive in the south started was that they were more
21:23 on the defensive really in the east than on the offensive.
21:26 It seems that what they're trying to say anyway is that they have kicked things up a gear
21:31 in the east and they say that they've made progress.
21:34 But unless there have been some new urgents coming in, I haven't heard of any actual villages,
21:40 any whole villages anyway, being liberated from under Russian occupation so far in this
21:45 new eastern push.
21:46 All right, Golover, thank you very much.
21:48 Golover Krag reporting from Kiev.
21:51 And let's just take a reminder and look at just who Wagner is, the group first identified
21:56 in 2014 when it was backing pro-Russian fighters in eastern Ukraine.
22:00 It's a private army of mercenaries believed to number the tens of thousands.
22:04 Emerald Maxwell and Catherine Kadir Clifford report.
22:07 Named after Hitler's favourite composer, the paramilitary group Wagner was founded and
22:15 is led by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
22:17 During the final years of the Soviet Union, Prigozhin served time in prison.
22:22 Afterwards he built his catering empire up from a hot dog stand, receiving support from
22:28 the Russian president and earning his nickname Putin's chef.
22:33 This Wagner group was founded in 2014 to help Russia annex Crimea but has since been expanded
22:38 into an international organisation.
22:42 It was only in the past year that Prigozhin's face became widely known as the man at the
22:46 helm of the Wagner group.
22:49 The Kremlin long denied the group's very existence.
22:52 But it has played an open and important role in the Ukraine war since Russia's 2022 invasion,
22:59 far from the group's usual hunting ground of Africa.
23:02 From Sudan to Libya, Chad to Guinea, even Madagascar, the mercenaries have allegedly
23:08 operated in over a dozen African countries, according to the Centre for Strategic and
23:13 International Studies.
23:15 Wagner's modus operandi is now well known.
23:18 In exchange for its services, it plunders the local resources, like in the Central African
23:23 Republic and Mali, where it has taken over gold mines.
23:27 The result is an unquantifiable financial windfall, which helps finance the group's
23:32 operations in Ukraine and pay its fighters, who are accused of rape and torture in a number
23:38 of African nations.
23:40 In Ukraine, the group played a key role in capturing Bakhmut.
23:44 The war's longest and bloodiest battle, Prigozhin has become increasingly outspoken against
23:50 Russia's military command.
23:52 "We have a shortage of ammunition, 70%!
23:56 Shoygu, Gerasimov, where the f*** are the ammunition?"
24:02 Evgeny Prigozhin says his men have endured heavy losses with inadequate ammunition supplies.
24:09 Wagner's exact number of fighters is unknown.
24:12 Tens of thousands of convicts were recruited to its ranks from Russian prisons, but the
24:16 group's chief says about as many have died on the battlefield, swelling the cemeteries
24:21 dedicated to them.
24:23 Last November, the mercenary group came out of the shadows, opening and imposing headquarters
24:28 in the centre of St Petersburg, the city where Prigozhin and Putin met.
24:33 The building is also home to another of Wagner's activities, its propaganda services to the
24:38 Kremlin, a troll farm that employs thousands of digital soldiers, Evgeny Prigozhin's
24:44 Second Army.
24:49 And we'd like to welcome to the program, Alexandra Filipenko, a political analyst joining
24:53 us on the line from Vilnius.
24:54 Hello, Alexandra, thank you for speaking to France 24.
24:58 As we heard in that report, some of Prigozhin's tirades there, US intelligence following this
25:04 sort of rift between him and the defence ministry for months now, and days ago, warning top
25:11 US officials that a revolt was likely.
25:14 The fact that the Kremlin appeared to be somewhat caught off guard, how does that reflect on
25:19 the domestic intelligence services in Russia?
25:22 Well, first of all, I think that Evgeny Prigozhin and the whole situation showed Russians and
25:29 the Kremlin and everyone who is around Vladimir Putin that Putin can be humiliated and that
25:36 he can look weak, because a lot of opposition leaders, Russian opposition leaders and a
25:42 lot of world leaders are afraid to make Putin look weak.
25:47 But Evgeny Prigozhin showed that actually you can try to overthrow the government, basically.
25:53 That's what, that was, that's what everyone was talking about, a coup.
25:57 You could stage a coup, but by the evening you could be pardoned by Vladimir Putin, who
26:03 in this situation definitely looks weak.
26:06 And Mr. Ferry just said earlier in the program that Evgeny Prigozhin is not a loser, but
26:13 he's not a winner in this situation.
26:15 But I would contradict, but because now Evgeny Prigozhin is the major player of Russian politics.
26:22 And of course everyone knew him, but everyone knew him as a chef or the head of those fabrics
26:28 of trolls or the Wagner group that works mainly in Africa or in Ukraine right now.
26:36 But now everyone sees Prigozhin as a huge, big, major player in Russian politics.
26:43 And the fact that Vladimir Putin didn't mention him by name yesterday, he doesn't, President
26:49 Putin is so superstitious.
26:51 He doesn't mention by name only his major enemies, I would say.
26:55 He doesn't mention by name Alexei Navalny ever.
26:58 He never mentioned him by name.
27:00 He doesn't mention Vladimir Zelensky by name.
27:02 And now yesterday, only yesterday, he didn't mention Evgeny Prigozhin.
27:06 So it shows, and we understand that today Evgeny Prigozhin is, I would say, a winner
27:13 of Russian politics.
27:15 And just look at how people were meeting him and his forces in Rostov and in Voronezh and
27:22 all those cities where they were Wagner mercenaries.
27:26 No one was trying to stop them.
27:29 Nothing like fighting in Ukraine, nothing like that.
27:33 And it seems that Evgeny Prigozhin was quite happy with what he was seeing.
27:38 And because he was, he was actually met with flowers.
27:41 What Kremlin has been saying about Ukraine, because Kremlin has been saying that Russian
27:46 forces would be met with flowers in Kiev.
27:49 But no, Evgeny Prigozhin and Wagner was met with flowers in Rostov, not with flowers,
27:55 but they didn't come across any fighting.
27:58 Yeah, Alexander, just, I mean, you're calling him a winner, but he's being told he has to
28:02 leave the country.
28:03 He's going to Belarus.
28:04 Do you think he'll be able to maintain this outsized influence?
28:07 Do you think he'll be pulling strings of Wagner while he's in Belarus?
28:11 Or do you think he's being swept into the cupboard?
28:15 I don't think he's going, he's being swept into the cupboard because first of all, just
28:20 24 hours ago, he, FSB opened a case against him, a treason case for 25 years in prison.
28:29 He should have gotten 25 years in prison, but he is getting off easy.
28:34 He's just leaving for Belarus, nothing else.
28:37 And maybe the whole gambit, the whole situation, the whole shebang that Keith rode was only
28:43 to get some finances, to get the money, because we can only speculate because we don't know
28:48 actually what's, what's happened.
28:50 But we know that President Lukashenko's plane landed yesterday in Turkey.
28:55 And apparently Roman Abramovich also went to Turkey.
29:01 And Roman Abramovich is one of top Putin's oligarchs.
29:05 So maybe there, we can only, again, we can only speculate.
29:10 Maybe during those talks between Lukashenko and Prigozhin, maybe Prigozhin was offered
29:15 a huge sum of money in order to just to stay in Belarus and not, not continue their trip.
29:24 Let's put it this way, to Moscow.
29:26 So I think from Belarus, he would be able not only to pull the strings, but also gather
29:31 his forces again and maybe actually try to become the president of Russia, but officially
29:38 this time, not with the Wagner mercenaries, but officially.
29:43 He is a major player of Russian politics right now.
29:45 All right.
29:46 Well, at the moment, let's just take a look at the relationship between Vladimir Putin
29:51 and Alexander Lukashenko, the Kremlin expressed some thanks for his mediation efforts to end
29:56 the crisis.
29:57 Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin.
30:00 Monty Francis has more.
30:04 Often referred to as Europe's last dictator, Alexander Lukashenko is now playing the role
30:09 of peacemaker.
30:11 In an official statement, Belarus said after speaking with Vladimir Putin, the two leaders
30:16 agreed to joint actions and that Lukashenko used his own channels and held negotiations
30:22 with the Wagner boss, Yevgeny Prokhorin, with approval of the Russian president.
30:27 The apparent result, a retreat by Wagner forces who were marching toward Moscow and refuge
30:33 for Prokhorin and Belarus with assurances he would not be prosecuted.
30:39 Vladimir Putin has no stronger ally than Alexander Lukashenko, who has been at the seat of power
30:44 in Belarus for almost three decades, their relationship mutually beneficial.
30:50 Putin supported Lukashenko after Belarus's widely disputed presidential election in 2020.
30:57 Lukashenko's reelection widely regarded as fraudulent by the West.
31:01 Putin even provided military backing when hundreds of thousands of Belarusians took
31:06 to the streets to protest Lukashenko's attempts to hold on to power.
31:11 Lukashenko's main opponent, Vatlana Tikhanouskaya, was forced to flee Belarus after the 2020
31:17 election and now lives in exile in Europe.
31:20 On Saturday, she said the latest episode with the Wagner group threatened to drag Belarus
31:25 further into Russia's war in Ukraine.
31:30 I want to call on all the Belarusian diplomats, military and security forces to remember that
31:35 we Belarusians have our own national interests.
31:40 Neither Putin nor Prokhorin are friends of Belarus and you should not choose their side.
31:46 Belarusians must defend their country.
31:48 How this situation will affect Belarus depends only on you and me.
31:55 Lukashenko has said officially that Belarus would not take part in Russia's so-called
31:59 special military operation in Ukraine, but has allowed the Russian military to use Belarus
32:05 as a staging ground and to position tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory, a
32:12 move that has raised alarm across the continent.
32:15 I speak to Nick Holdsworth again.
32:18 Nick, I'm not sure if you were able to follow that report.
32:20 We're looking at the relationship between Belarus and Russia's Vladimir Putin.
32:24 Putin, who supported Lukashenko in that 2020 election.
32:28 I was wondering if you could sort of explain the relationship between Belarus and Wagner
32:34 for us.
32:37 It's yet to be seen quite what that relationship will be.
32:40 All we know so far is that Alexander Lukashenko negotiated with Prigogine on behalf of Putin,
32:48 apparently.
32:49 It's highly unusual.
32:50 Lukashenko is the junior partner between Russia and Belarus.
32:55 Why those negotiations weren't taking place between Putin himself and Prigogine?
33:01 They've known each other a very long time.
33:04 We don't know.
33:05 What may become clearer is once we see who Prigogine takes with him to Belarus, it will
33:13 become much clearer.
33:15 Possibly Lukashenko is looking for another force, a more independent force that can support
33:23 his position in Minsk.
33:26 It's only three years since there were popular demonstrations in Minsk against his rule.
33:32 A lot of people arrested and beaten up, some deaths, opposition politicians going into
33:38 exile in Europe.
33:41 Lukashenko is always worried about his position.
33:44 He's always trying to play off his position vis-a-vis Putin and what he considers the
33:51 independence of Belarus, as was just referred to by the opposition leader in exile there.
33:57 So it's not really clear at the moment what he's getting out of it.
34:02 It was suggested by your guest in Vilnius that Wagner may be getting a lot of money
34:08 out of this.
34:09 It will also be interesting to see what impact this deal has on Wagner's operations in Africa,
34:18 Sub-Saharan Africa and Western Africa, which have been very significant.
34:23 A lot of resources being taken away from those countries, that 43 million euros in cash found
34:30 in St. Petersburg at the Wagner headquarters.
34:33 So it's really quite unclear what sort of relationship.
34:36 Up until this point, Lukashenko, although he may have met Wagner in the past, wasn't
34:41 known to be somebody particularly well connected with him.
34:44 So this is very much a new development.
34:47 You mentioned those arrests earlier in 2020 with that disputed election.
34:53 Among those arrests were three people supposedly members of Wagner.
34:59 Now we have the head of Wagner going to Belarus, as you referred to our guest earlier, Alexander
35:05 Filippenko, thinking he might have some political ambitions to become president in Russia.
35:09 Do you think Belarus would let him campaign from Belarus?
35:13 Or do you think maybe he has a different fate awaiting him, maybe possibly being locked
35:18 up like those Wagner mercenaries in 2020?
35:21 I very much doubt that Lukashenko would support Wagner in a bid for president in Russia, because
35:29 that would pitch Lukashenko directly against Putin.
35:33 There are also groups in the security services in Moscow who have their own interests in
35:40 putting forward a successor for Putin eventually.
35:44 I'm not sure that Lukashenko is an honest dealer in this game.
35:50 And it's quite possible that Prigozhin may find himself either imprisoned or executed
35:57 or done away with in some way or other.
36:01 In some senses, we now are positioning for some kind of power struggle in Moscow, even
36:08 though Prigozhin will be in Minsk between different power groups.
36:12 And Prigozhin is very much not a friend of the security service bloc in the Kremlin.
36:20 There's the military bloc, he's not friends with them.
36:22 There's the Chechen leader, Kadyrov's Chechen brigade, who was sent up to Rostov to confront
36:29 Prigozhin.
36:30 Of course, that didn't happen because the mutiny was called off.
36:34 There are various different groups.
36:36 I'm not sure Lukashenko would be supporting Wagner in a bid for presidency in Moscow.
36:41 Right.
36:42 Oliver, you were talking earlier about the transformation from Prigozhin, who was someone
36:48 who had kept a low profile, who before Wagner was sort of like officially stated to exist
36:57 in Russia.
36:58 Prigozhin was a low profile.
37:00 And now we see him making these off-the-cuff remarks over time.
37:03 We see this tension building up over time.
37:05 Talk to us a little bit about the sort of persona he's displayed.
37:08 Yeah, he was so low profile, in fact, that he sued a British journalist, Catherine Belton,
37:14 for basically referring to him as the head of Wagner.
37:18 So he was prepared to go to court to even deny that Wagner existed or that he was the
37:24 head of it.
37:26 That court case fell apart once Russia invaded Ukraine, because it was no longer being entertained
37:32 in the British courts.
37:34 Prigozhin is a bit of, I suppose, for want of a better word, he is probably a common
37:41 street thug made good.
37:43 He started off in the furniture business back in the old Soviet Union.
37:49 That went under, and then he ended up in prison for a number of robberies.
37:53 And he emerged from prison just when the Soviet Union was breaking up and managed to fall
37:58 in with Vladimir Putin.
38:01 We all know now that he started as a hot dog seller, but then became quite a successful
38:07 restaurateur.
38:08 He knew how to basically make all his connections work.
38:15 There's nothing particularly remarkable about his rise.
38:18 It's very much gangsters meeting the nexus of power.
38:24 And he managed to keep himself in Vladimir Putin's good graces all the way through the
38:30 presidency.
38:31 It's only in the last 10 years that Wagner has become prominent.
38:35 But as you said, Prigozhin would not have even really been terribly familiar until maybe
38:45 a year or two ago, possibly before the invasion of Ukraine.
38:52 But certainly since then, he has grasped quite enthusiastically this persona.
38:56 He has, in fact, he has made himself, he has shown himself to be as vulgar and enthusiastic
39:06 as Hogue, something that goes down quite well with quite a lot of Russians.
39:12 It's all the more amazing that we haven't heard from him yet today.
39:15 That's true.
39:16 We don't really know what his motives for that are, because he's not somebody who's
39:21 shy of putting himself in the spotlight.
39:24 You also pointed out we haven't heard from some of the senior Russian defense officials
39:28 neither.
39:29 That's right.
39:30 In fact, Sergei Shoigu, the defense minister, and also Valery Gerasimov, who is the general
39:36 chief of staff, they did not speak up at all yesterday, something that probably Vladimir
39:41 Putin would not be terribly impressed by, that they stayed silent when they were the
39:47 ones being pointed out by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
39:52 So they're probably safe for the moment simply by dint of the fact that Prigozhin
40:00 demanded their removal.
40:01 So Vladimir Putin is probably not going to make himself look weaker still by removing
40:07 them.
40:08 But there is, there's definitely a lot of strange silence going on here.
40:12 Vladimir Putin has finally spoken today after more than 24 hours saying nothing.
40:18 But there's quite a lot of people who didn't say anything yesterday.
40:23 Some people did speak up, and they might be rewarded by Vladimir Putin as a result.
40:29 But it is very, very significant that there is these silences in these particular circles
40:39 at this time, probably people hedging their bets.
40:42 Yeah.
40:43 Let's speak to our correspondent in Ukraine, in Zaporizhia, Gwendolyn Davono.
40:46 Hello to you, Gwendolyn.
40:47 We're discussing some of the morale perhaps among senior Russian defence officials.
40:53 What have you been hearing on the front line when you've been speaking to Ukrainian troops
40:56 about the reactions over what transpired this weekend in Russia?
41:02 Well, for instance, we were talking to a commander this morning who told us that he had, of course,
41:10 been surprised by Wagner action, but surprised by the timing, not by the nature of the event,
41:17 nor by the way that all this event ended.
41:21 For him, the Russian mercenary group and the various clans in power in Moscow are like,
41:26 and I quote him, "like spiders fighting in a bottle."
41:30 And now, even though Wagner soldiers have returned to their bases, several Ukrainian
41:36 officers see this as an opportunity to attack.
41:39 They believe that those events have an impact on Russian soldiers on the front line who
41:45 wants to give his life for the interest of warlords.
41:49 That's what a Ukrainian commander told us this morning.
41:51 For him, this is a weakness that needs to be exploited, even though, of course, it is
41:57 the Ukrainian general staff who decide on the conduct and the reason of operations here
42:02 on the ground.
42:03 Yeah.
42:04 And Gwendolyn, can you give us an update on that counteroffensive, some of the latest
42:07 fighting you've been following?
42:10 Well, for the moment, there has been no major changes on the front.
42:17 And yesterday's events do not erase the difficulties that Ukrainian forces have to overcome.
42:25 It did not disorganize Russian troops all of a sudden.
42:29 There are still several Russian lines of defense to cross, a large number of mines, a huge
42:35 Russian artillery power and more frequent and intelligent use of the air force by Russian
42:43 forces.
42:44 So even though yesterday Ukrainian officials were talking all day long about a window of
42:49 opportunity, the plan cannot change radically overnight.
42:54 Ukraine must preserve its troops and equipment supplies by its Western allies.
43:00 Moreover, the head of the ground forces has repeated everything is ahead of us.
43:05 Most of our forces has not yet committed to this counteroffensive.
43:09 It must be understood that now over 12 new brigades trained for this counteroffensive,
43:17 only three are deployed today on the battlefield.
43:20 All right.
43:21 Gwendolyn, thank you very much.
43:22 Gwendolyn Di Bono reporting from Zaporizhia.
43:24 Well, U.S. media reported that senior military and administration officials were briefed
43:30 as early as Wednesday of a possible revolt in Russia.
43:34 Reports in both the New York Times and the Washington Post, that's the one you see there
43:38 on your screen, for months U.S. intelligence had been tracking the rising tensions between
43:42 Wagner and Russia's war leaders.
43:45 Ketivan Gordistanyi reports from Washington.
43:49 Those media reports actually stating that U.S. intelligence agencies started picking
43:53 up information about possible actions by the Wagner group against Russian military leadership
44:01 as early as mid-June.
44:03 Now, at the time, they didn't exactly know what the nature of those operations would
44:08 be, what the timeline would be, but it was concerning enough and serious enough that
44:15 the intelligence agencies briefed not only the White House and the Pentagon, but also
44:20 the State Department, as well as top leadership in Congress.
44:24 So everyone was really kept appraised about those pieces of information.
44:29 U.S. intelligence agencies also believe that Vladimir Putin himself knew about the upcoming
44:38 plan, though they don't know exactly when he found out about Prigozhin's operations
44:44 and planned to revolt against the Russian army.
44:48 Now, the reason why the U.S. and the Biden administration really kept mum about this
44:55 information, the first reason is pretty obvious.
44:59 They didn't really have any interest in helping Vladimir Putin fend off such an operation.
45:05 They didn't want to help Vladimir Putin in any way.
45:08 But the other reason is what you mentioned, which is that they didn't want to be seen
45:13 as tipping the scale, as being involved in any of this, and certainly did not want to
45:19 give any reason for Vladimir Putin to use this to claim that possibly Prigozhin's operation
45:27 was somehow masterminded by the United States or its Western allies.
45:32 And that is why they really kept this to themselves.
45:35 And even now, these are all media reports citing sources who are remaining anonymous,
45:42 both in the intelligence world and in the defense world, but still no official admission
45:48 about that or no official from the Biden administration openly and publicly talking about this.
45:55 Ketivan Gorgastani reporting from Washington.
45:59 And U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with the leaders from the U.K., France and Germany
46:03 in the run-up to this crisis being diffused over concern about the fate of Russia's nuclear
46:08 weapons.
46:09 One question for you, Nick, where's China in all of this?
46:13 How does it view Vladimir Putin's unable to sniff out this revolt ahead of time?
46:19 And do you think Putin kept China in the fray, in the know, once Putin possibly learned of
46:25 it the day before it was launched?
46:29 Chinese are keeping very quiet at the moment.
46:33 Their foreign minister, Qin Gang, met today with Russia's deputy foreign minister, Andrei
46:38 Rodenko, in Beijing.
46:41 But apart from a very brief statement from China's foreign ministry saying that the two
46:47 discussed international and regional issues of common concern, there's no word from China.
46:52 All right, Nick.
46:54 Thank you very much, Nick Holdsworth, reporting there.
46:58 I'd like to thank all of our guests on this special report about the aftermath of this
47:07 revolt in Russia and what its consequences are for Russia, for Belarus and for the battlefield
47:15 in Ukraine.
47:16 That brings us to the end of this special report.
47:17 Thank you for watching.
47:18 More news coming up at the top of the hour.
Recommended
0:17
|
Up next