Rebellion in Russia: Why did Prigozhin back down? | DW News

an armed Uprising in Russia has come to an abrupt end after the head of the Wagner mercenary group ordered his troops to stand down evgeny pregosian abandoned his attempt to overthrow Russia's military commanders after striking a deal with the Kremlin Wagner forces have now withdrawn from the southern city of rosoff on Don where they earlier occupied the district military headquarters Ferguson says Wagner is pulling back its troops to avoid spilling Russian blood the Kremlin says he will move to Belarus and all criminal charges against him and his soldiers will be withdrawn listen to less than four hours after Wagner troops rolled into rostov vondon they rolled back out again leaving as Local Heroes their Rebellion turned to retreat after Wagner Basi of Guinea pregosian reached a deal with the Kremlin seen here pausing for photos as he left the city pragosian said Wagner soldiers would return to Ukraine for shedding Russian blood from one side to another we are turning our convoys back and we're going back to field camps the Kremlin has credited Belarusian leader Alexander lukashenko with brokering the deal which ensured pregosian would leave for Belarus and that all charges related to the Mutiny would be dropped it was agreed that the Wagner group will return to their camps some of them who wish to do so in the future will sign contracts with the ministry of Defense this applies to those units that did not take part in this campaign indeed there were some soldiers that came to their senses right from the start extraordinary day in Russia during which Wagner claimed to have made it within 200 kilometers of the capital the U-turn was a major backdown by pagosian who earlier alleged Russia's military attacked his troops in Ukraine and that the public was being lied to about the war Vladimir Putin had vowed to crush the Rebellion that that threat quickly softened to an exiled deal the compromise ending pregosians Insurgency but calling into question Russia's stability and Putin's political future [Applause] DW's former Moscow bureau chief Yuri rashetto joins us now from Riga as DW is banned from reporting in Russia Yuri arguably the biggest threat to Putin's grip on power ending as abruptly as it started even seasoned Russia Watchers were left stunned by the events of this weekend how did it come to this well people in Russia Michael are wondering exactly the same thing namely what was that I think what happened puts the Russian State and the Russian president personally in a quite bad light he comes a man who officially holds no office who doesn't give a damn about the Russian bureaucracy and all Russian State organs and even more who insults the minister of defense and by the way a close Ally of Putin so here comes Mr pregosian with a gun at his hand makes demands and everyone cringes the president makes a dramatic speech but does nothing of course Putin's desire to avoid Bloodshed is more than understandable but he asks another ruler with a very dubious reputation namely Belarusian ruler lukashenko to mediate because he himself cannot and suddenly the conflict is resolved with the result that everything Putin said about grigosion no longer applies in the morning precaution was still a dangerous criminal and already in the evening he was a free man it would appear Evgeni Pagosa knew exactly what he was doing why would he agree to a deal that essentially would see him exile to Belarus well I think that big ocean who is a tough businessman first of all and earns a lot of money with his army not only in Russia by the way so I think that he simply didn't feel like continuing to suffer heavy losses in Ukraine and decided to withdraw from this business in Ukraine because for him the war is nothing but a business he couldn't make any more money with the Russian government because he had extremely bad relationship with the minister of defense and so he decided to leave but he did it with his head held high which is important because we must not forget that private armies are still banned in Russia and by the way we don't know if he will live in Exile in Belarus maybe he moves to Africa or Asia the world is Big precautions troops fight ever worldwide and he is now a celebrity what do you make of the images of everyday Russians cheering on Wagner mercenaries in Rasta vandan not unlike conquering Heroes well yes the yesterday day was bizarre when tanks came to rostov and uh stayed there yesterday they were already bizarre senior stains of approach between the Wagner mercenaries and the population during the day when women posed in front of the tanks and took photos and yeah the armed man was already during the day for many in rostov and Don in the south of Russia more an attraction than a real threat but everyone was already somehow worried of course when the troops then withdrew of course there was relief and maybe one or the other was happy that Prego had publicly humiliated the Kremlin and the Russian president Yuri I'm curious how are all these events being reported on in Russia well precaution not only puts the Russian state in a bad light Michael but also the Russian State propaganda on the night of Saturday a program was interrupted on the first Russian television and the presenter read a statement as a war in the wartime um then Putin came on TV in the morning everything reminded the Russians on the pooch from the 1990s when the then Soviet president was more or less detained on Crimea and Soviet television showed Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake in Endless Loops but we are no longer living in the 90s and of course like everywhere else in the world people used social media to get a lot of information it's still happening in Russia still DW's Yuri rashetto many thanks as always Yuri and now let's uh welcome Marina muron a military Analyst at King's College London for a closer look at the security implications of all of this uh Marina surely will be speculating about this event for years to come I'm sure people are all over the world why in your view did yevgeny pregosian take the audacious step to launch a rebellion only to withdraw as quickly as he started it good morning Michael well that that was very unexpected because in order to prepare a real Insurgency it takes many years and somebody who is preparing that needs to ensure that they also have popular support as well as can attract support of the Armed Forces and I think that precaution might have gambled because he might have thought that by challenging the ministry of defense and um challenging put in perhaps more indirectly that he would gain support um from the population and especially from the Armed Forces but he miscalculated that and with the forces that he had just looking at the kind of correlation of forces I think that he might have realized that on the one hand it might end up in in a very bloody way on the other hand it would kind of undermine his own narrative because he was talking about being patriotic and standing up full fully armed forces and then he would have to fight those armed forces that he's standing up for so in a way that would have undermined his narrative and he also saw that while he was marching that um the Kremlin and the ministry of Defense they were not backing down so they were showing the Readiness to face him on their terms therefore I think that it was for him a a strategic exit not to escalate the situation any further Marina as you well know his criticisms had consistently been directed at the leadership of Russia's military but he must have known his actions would be viewed as an attempt to topple Putin was that in fact his intention well he never really verbalized regime change per se I think his ambition was to take a shoego's place in the ministry of defense and perhaps he overestimated his relationship was put in because Putin hasn't done anything about his insults to the ministry of defense and he had to kind of balance this relationship between pregocian and his Wagner group on the one hand and the ministry of Defense on the other hand but if push comes to show I think for Putin it wouldn't have been viable to choose precautions side because precaution is an outside element and he is somebody who is not even involved in the armed forces so the the choice for putting was clear and I think precaution might have realized that he has crossed indeed the red line and that he's not going to enjoy putting support anymore if if events continue the way they do in the hours following progression takeover of the key Russian town of rostov every major official reportedly publicly pledged their loyalty to Putin but is it reasonable to believe pragosian would have triggered a rebellion without knowing he had some measure of support in Moscow I don't think that precaution enjoyed that kind of support even other private military companies and you know if we look at um the church in litica thereof they all um decided to close agreements it was a Ministry of Defense so even amongst those he didn't seem to enjoy much support because he could have prepared it much better and gotten them on his side in order to increase the amount of his supporters from 25 000 troops and as far as the armed forces are concerned uh Putin has a tool which is called the gru to make sure that any moods of rebellion are detected and this is something that goes back to the Soviet times telling use the same um institution in order to keep check on the military to avoid a military coup so I think that um Putin's government might have caught it early on if they had sensed anything in the military per se you know you know part of the reason I ask is I am sure that their viewers all around the world who've been watching uh these events unfold and it's difficult for them to imagine a comparatively small group of men taking on the Russian army in the streets of Moscow so it comes to reason that you might think that there must be some support there along the lines somewhere in Moscow some small element in the Kremlin well there might be a very small element but that element is not enough to carry out the kind of operation that precaution was seeking to carry out and it might be that he had overestimated his popularity he established um the credentials of being um against the mod wanting to support the armed forces and certainly he's not wrong about mismanagement however even that wasn't enough to sway others on his side especially because those others would know if anything fails then this is the end for them and so the situation for them would have been too risky well let me ask you this is this the end of the Wagner group well that's a very good question now apparently if Wagner is going in Exile to Belarus his Fighters still have the possibility to work for the ministry of defense and I think um Putin will try to calmly resolve this and let it go over and absorb the remaining elements of the Wagner group at least those in Russia in order to deploy them to Ukraine because after all um precaution has very good fighters on his side what will happen to his African contingent we don't know yet whether he will try to manage them and obviously precautions own future is um in question when it comes to his personal security Marina we only have half a minute but I do want to ask you what this loss Will mean for Russia's War well I think at this stage and it blew over very quickly it was a spike but nothing substantial happened and the situation has been controlled as of yesterday evening so I think those who are on the front here they will be following orders it might affect their morale

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Length: 14min 12sec (852 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 25 2023