The Russian defense minister is apparently visiting the front, according to the media, proceedings against Prigozhin are continuing, Ukraine is likely to open a new section of the front. The overview on Monday evening.
It is not known where Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin is currently staying. His office said on Sunday he had poor cell phone reception but would be happy to answer any questions once he was available again. On Monday it became known that the Russian authorities had not yet dropped the case against Prigozhin, as had been agreed.
Day two after the Wagner mutiny in Russia, there are still many unanswered questions. Also, what exactly happened behind the scenes at the Kremlin on Saturday.
The Russian exile medium “Meduza” presents a first answer to this , whose journalists are considered to be excellently networked in Russia. Accordingly, officials in the Kremlin and in the military leadership began to negotiate with Prigozhin on Friday evening.
Prigozhin demanded the dismissal of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, more money and more autonomy for his troops. Demands that President Vladimir Putin obviously did not want to meet.
Phase two therefore began on Saturday morning. The Kremlin’s strategy was for officials to publicly oppose Prigozhin, which the commander of the air force and the deputy military intelligence officer, among others, did. The high point was Putin’s televised speech, in which the President accused the mercenary boss of rebellion and high treason – a “stab in the back” of Russia. The signs now pointed to confrontation.
Around noon, Prigozhin is said to have tried to get Putin on the phone personally. But Putin didn’t want to speak to him. At that moment, the Wagner boss is said to have realized that he had gone too far. At this point, the Wagner mercenaries were moving towards the first defensive line of the Russian army, which was supposed to stop their advance towards Moscow. Stupid for Prigozhin: At that time no soldiers from the regular army had defected to him. A bloodbath threatened.
According to the informants from “Meduza”, who are said to work in the Kremlin, among other places, Putin wanted a group of high-ranking officials for the negotiations. In the end, it was his chief of staff Anton Vaino, Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev (head of the Russian Security Council), and the Russian ambassador in Minsk, Boris Gryzlov – the negotiations were headed by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
The outcome is known: Prigozhin called his troops back. For this, he and his fighters should go unpunished. One of the unanswered questions on Monday: will Putin keep his negotiators’ promises?
