American and Russian intelligence services would have known about Wagner’s rebellion plans sooner. This led to a disappointment last weekend as Chief Wagner Prigozhin had to halt his march to Moscow a few hundred kilometers before the capital. “He had counted on a warm welcome from these, and possibly several, generals.”
Putin knew it
It is not yet clear who knew about these plans, but BNR foreign commentator Bernard Hammelburg is increasingly convinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin did indeed know what was going to happen.
“He allowed it to happen and now he’s using it to start a cleanup in peace”
In doing so, he reverts to his earlier suspicion that Putin was the only one surprised by the mutiny. “I think he knew that. He allowed it to happen and now he’s using it to begin a cleansing in peace.’ Keeping control in his own hands, Prigozhin and a few generals have left, Hammelburg suspects. “Putin didn’t play badly at all.”
Chaos is no stranger to the Russians
Chaos at the top military is not a strange occurrence in Russian history. “This is actually a constant picture,” says Hammelburg. “The organization of the military has always been a mess and that really goes back hundreds of years.”
During World War II, Russia lost more than twenty million people. According to military historians, this would not have been necessary if the chain of command had been better organised. “They can not.”
That’s why the concrete consequences of a purge of military leadership in Russia shouldn’t be great, Hammelburg thinks. “It’s not that Russia is suddenly in a weaker position, or that her chances of winning have diminished.” That’s good news for Ukraine, or at least not bad news. “But in the end it doesn’t mean anything.”
Carnage
Meanwhile, more and more details are emerging about what happened last Saturday during Wagner’s march to Moscow. It is therefore clear that the Russian army opened fire on the Wagner soldiers. However, they returned fire, downing one major military aircraft and five attack helicopters. “It really was a bloodbath.” The aircraft, type Il-22, served as a flying command and communication center.
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