After the suspected arrest of prominent Russian general Sergey Soerovikin, more and more members of the military top seem to be disappearing from the scene, Hammelburg says on the BNR, in his interpretation of events. Putin could take revenge on the associates of the leader of Wagner Prigozhin and his mercenaries. “He must have known.”
Putin warns mutineers, Ukraine and the West
And Putin does not stop there. In his first televised speech since the Wagner group uprising on Monday, he warned that all attempts at rioting or blackmail in Russia are doomed to failure. Ukraine and its Western allies are said to want the Russians to “kill each other”. Putin thanked security officials, including Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu, whom Prigozhin had asked to be removed from office.
The events of the past weekend will also not go unnoticed by the Russian people, predicts Russia expert Michel Krielaars. In BNR’s Perestroikast he expresses the expectation that the Russians can count on a major repression following the uprising. “Putin has to find out who is loyal and until he has clarity on this, he will go into hiding.” Krielaars believes last weekend’s events deeply affected Russian President Vladimir Putin. ‘
Putin did not want to talk to Prigozhin
However, Putin probably could have saved himself a lot of trouble by returning a phone call from Progozhin last Saturday. The day his troops advanced on Moscow, he tried to talk to Putin. But he declined the conversation, the US think tank ISW reported, in part on the basis of what was reported by the Russian opposition newspaper Meduza. According to Meduza, the Kremlin only started negotiations when Prigozhin realized that there was too little support for his action.