Zach Crawford
Vladimir Putin’s reaction to Yevgeny Prigozhin’s attempted coup is only beginning, but the first effects are already showing: Wagner will no longer fight in Ukraine. For months, a thorn in the side of the Kiev army, the group of mercenaries had been warned that if they did not sign the contract tying them hand and foot to the regular army in Moscow, “they would no longer take part in a special military operation” and there would be no more funding or supplies.” That was it. As Prigozhin closed in on Belarus, though Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he did not know the whereabouts of Wagner’s boss, other pawns who would have helped him were about to fall. One above all, commander Russia’s Air Force Sergei Surovikin, who has been untraceable since Saturday, released a video urging the rebels to stop.The Moscow Times’ rumors about his arrest were confirmed today by the Financial Times, but it is not yet known if he “has been accused of complicity in the uprising or whether he was being held for interrogation.”
Ansa agency
IEC President sent by the Pope to Moscow: “The Pope does not surrender” (ANSA)
According to Bloomberg, the general has been under interrogation for several days “at an unspecified location,” but he is not in prison. Here they will ask him about connections with Wagner and Prigozhin. Instead, Surovikin’s daughter, Veronika, denied everything, arguing that “nothing happened” and that “everyone is in their place”: “The girl’s parents supported the explanation of the shadow cone that the general never appears in the media every day and does not make public statements.” Regularly “. Surovikin and Prigozhin were both active in Syria and Chief Wagner always had positive words for him. However, that wouldn’t be the only reason General Armageddon hoped for a change at the top. Appointed by Putin in the fall to command Russian forces in Ukraine, Surovkin led the campaign in which Moscow bombed Kiev’s energy supply systems, hitting Ukrainian power plants and other critical infrastructure, but failed to get through. trying to leave. without electricity. A partial defeat would have led the tsar to replace him, in January, with chief of staff Valery Gerasimov, whose deputy would be Surovikin. Like him, there will be other military leaders who are suspected of having at least some sympathy with Prigozhin’s attempt at rebellion. Speculation about purging those Putin labeled traitors to give Russia a “stab in the back” is unconfirmed. But whether it was propaganda or not, the Russian president seems to have regained confidence after Prigozhin’s departure from the scene. Accompanied by a senior security service, last night he went on a visit to Dagestan, where he was received, according to the presenter Olga Skabeeva, “like a rock star.” A picnic with handshakes and demonstrations of support from the crowd, to which Putin addressed saying he “never doubted” his people during the Wagner Rebellion. Confirmation that the Russian president boasted again today in Moscow on the occasion of the agency’s forum for strategic initiatives. At first, he approached the stand of NexTouch, a brand that produces touch screens, smiling, drawing a smiley face on the screen. Then he pointed out that “the world has not collapsed due to sanctions and the withdrawal of Western companies” and “on the contrary, the opportunities for Russian businessmen have multiplied.”
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Laurence Malcom
