Mutiny was most serious challenge to Putin’s rule | DW News

today marks one year since Russian mercenary Chief yini pin launched the most serious challenge to Vladimir Putin in his nearly quarter Century rule angered by a lack of ammunition in the war against Ukraine his Wagner group military forces Advanced unopposed into rosof in southern Russia on June 23rd last year from there they then turned their sights on Moscow a year ago Russia was jolted by the news of an armed Uprising a March led by one of Putin’s closest allies yanii pran had been complaining for months that the Russian military was denying his Vagner mercenary forces ammunition in Ukraine on the 23rd of June 2023 he ordered his soldiers to take over Russia’s Southern military headquarters we’re at the headquarters it’s 7:30 a.m. military objects of rostov are under control including the Airfield pran then ordered his forces to roll toward Moscow to unseat his foes blockades were set up around the capital and Putin’s response was Swift all those who deliberately set out on the path of betrayal who prepared and armed Rebellion who undertook blackmail and terrorist methods will suffer inevitable punishment and will answer both to the law and to our people an amnesty deal brokered by belarussian leader Alexander lucenko in which the mercenary forces were offered a choice of moving to bellarus brought an Abrupt and anticlimactic end to the greatest challenge to Putin’s rule yet experts say he has suffered very little lasting damage to his authority we have not seen kind of the the loss of confidence in the Kremlin that we might have expected to see from among sort of the Russian Elite and sort of the Rich and Powerful uh men mostly around around Putin um which might in fact signal that the kreml is stronger than we think right that it can afford a certain amount of of chaos and and dysfunction and and and yet the core holds solid as for pran exactly two months after his failed coup attempt a plane carrying him and his top Associates crashed killing everyone on board the Kremlin has denied involvement earlier I asked the military analyst Sean mcfate if he agreed that pin’s failed Rebellion has not affected Putin’s grip on power I don’t agree I think that prosan his attempt his march on Moscow a year ago showed just how vulnerable Putin was and it also let’s remember that progan rode from Ukraine to Moscow nearly unopposed and and afterwards Putin reestablished his grip on power but I think the legacy of his vulnerability still exists in the air so even though Putin remains strong today I think it showed vulnerability and if you’re an autocrat vulnerability is Kryptonite now looking ahead um do you see then any potential for renewed internal challenge to Putin’s Authority or has the rebellion’s failure uh solidified his position I think it’s a great question and it’s simply too early to know I think in some ways uh Putin he reestablished parts of his regime to solidify his power generals who were sympathetic to voder group got cashiered they got fired he has rearranged a lot of his Generals in the past months in the defense in the Shiki the sort of the National Security Forces but I think it it really scared Putin and I think that he faces CR criticisms from both the left and the right the left of course have always been in the naanis ETC but the right think he’s been too weak as well he’s let progan bully him around Etc so I think the legacy of the Vagner group of pran it’s simply too really to know if um if Putin has Consolidated power now we remember those pictures of pan being cheered as he was marching towards Mo Moscow what has happened with that support well as you know with much popular support that is anti-establishment in Russia it gets suppressed and progan became a bit of a folk hero because he he embodied the voice of what many people thought in Russia but were too timid to say he was very critical of the war in Ukraine he was very critical of the generals in the Russian military who ran the war and so he became like this voice of the voiceless and then when he disappeared then all those voices either became very silent or they went to jail as is true in any autocracy we can now speak to Kil shamov he’s a political scientist and expert on Russian domestic politics and he joins us from the Lithuanian Capital vness welcome to DW so we know that there are experts who say that pran’s failed Rebellion hasn’t had any impact on Putin’s grip on power do you agree with that assessment thank you for having me yes I agree with this assessment and moreover I would say that it only regime because in the authoritarian political system what’s worse than having no Revolution is having a failed Revolution and what it means that the keman learned the lessons it analyzed weaker spots in the political and administrative system and now it’s uh stronger than it was before pror Mutiny because if you remember correctly back a year ago not a single member of the elite supported the Mutiny the military stayed in the barracks or on the front lines fighting the ukrainians and prian himself was such a person that not only irritated actually scared members of the elite because he was a very anti-elitist force and he promised you know to punish corrupt Elites and of course people in Moscow were quite afraid of him now he is gone and there’s only Putin well you say the Kremlin learned from this failed Rebellion so is there any potential in the future for some sort of challenge to Putin’s Authority my view lot depends on the uh U on the situation on the front lines the situation with the war against Ukraine if the Kremlin does not achieve any significant political success in Ukraine that will cause enormous shock waves across the Russian political system the military and security apparatus because they have invested so much including their lives and achieving nothing would be a problem for now Russia is conducting offensive operations on in Ukraine and Ukraine is undefensible currently Russia but we’ll see what’s going to happen next year Well if we look back a year ago there were many people who were cheering as pran and his Vagner forces were marching towards Moscow so what has happened to all those people who showed support for this Rebellion I would be careful to say that there were many people cheering for this because pran was famous for having a very effective media Empire and social media Empire that was working to popularize His Image his figure and to show his him as a as a very famous you know and successful politician and a military leader and in fact in Roso region yes there were people bystanders curious about what was happening but the later we saw the evidence that actually majority of the population the rosto Fon is a big city uh stayed at home and were actually terrified what was happening what’s more important also in the authoritarian system is not the actual you know just ordinary people because they have no power in such a system unlike the members of the elite and the two most important people in what was private military company Wagner pran it’s kind of political leader or its manager civilian manager of the company and the its military had the NS utkin he was uh both of them were killed in in in the in the um when the land when the aircraft was exploded in the uh in over Russia territory so this kind of ended the history of vag under pran and that was Kil shamov thank you so much for all of your insights

It has been a year since Yevgeny Prigozhin led the Wagner Group of mercenaries in an uprising against the Kremlin.

Angered by a lack of ammunition in the war against Ukraine, his Wagner Group forces marched unopposed into Rostov in southern Russia on 23 June last year. From there they set their sights on Moscow.

Prigozhin called off the coup within hours, but it was the most serious challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule since he came to power in 1999. Exactly two months later, a plane carrying Prigozhin and his top aides crashed, killing everyone on board. The Kremlin denied any involvement. Russia has rejected an international investigation into the crash of Prigozhin’s private plane over its territory.

Chapters
00:00 One year since Wagner mutiny challenged Putin
02:32 Sean McFate, Military Strategist
05:29 Kirill Shamiev, Political Scientist

#wagnergroup #russiaukrainewar #yevgenyprigozhin

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49 comments

  3. ((Updated)): 🗞️📰🗞️📰 “If we give up on the moral code our country believes in we’re no better than (who we are fighting).” – US Military Code

    “Been that way for 30 years.” – U.S. Justice Department on the lack of Human Rights in Oklahoma County Jail, 2020 P.S. You get 2 days for every 1 you serve there bc it is so bad.

    “Makes me feel human again after this place.” – Oklahoma City Art Museum review after life in the local shelters (20+ years in the making), 2024

    “It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” – Nelson Mandela 🥂🥂

    I got human beings I love. Lying to them was never my thing. There is no God. Thanks to an old friend I remember the first lie I ever told 🙂 – Me aka Ron Swanson 2.0/Ron Swanson on Snoop Dogg/a nerd

    free and fair elections
    freedom of speech & expression
    equal access to education
    rule of law
    freedom of peaceful assembly

    Enough to know the USA created hells in the 21st century I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I pledged my allegiance to Monaco. 💋💋

  4. ((Update)): 🗞️📰🗞️📰 “If we give up on the moral code our country believes in we’re no better than (who we are fighting).” – US Military Code

    “Been that way for 30 years.” – U.S. Justice Department on the lack of Human Rights in Oklahoma County Jail, 2020 P.S. You get 2 days for every 1 you serve there bc it is so bad.

    “Makes me feel human again after this place.” – Oklahoma City Art Museum review after life in the local shelters (20+ years in the making), 2024

    “It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” – Nelson Mandela 🥂🥂

    I got human beings I love. Lying to them was never my thing. There is no God. Thanks to an old friend I remember the first lie I ever told 🙂 – Me aka Ron Swanson 2.0/Ron Swanson on Snoop Dogg/a nerd

    free and fair elections
    freedom of speech & expression
    equal access to education
    rule of law
    freedom of peaceful assembly

    Enough to know the USA created hells in the 21st century I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I pledged my allegiance to Monaco. 💋💋

  6. When Putin says betrayal to motherland means whoever try to played him out his or her days are already numbered no matter who the person is 😂😂😂😂😂

  12. Wagner were not cheered for their march on Moscow. They were cheered for ending the stand-off without heavy fighting and for peacefully withdrawing from Rostov on Don
    Wagner are heroes in RF for their victories in the SMO not for oppossing Putin

  14. There is a armed uprising going on right now in southern Russia, the largest since the war started. Good timing on the topic. Russia's power is not as strong as people think. This is why Putin is putting his family members in power and why he has put a large number of military leaders in jail. He trusts no one. Evidence the changing of the guard and now a large uprising.

  16. He was the "voice of the voiceless"😅
    His supporters were all pro-war and not anti-Putin. They were appreciating his contribution to the war in Ukraine. They did not support the mitiny.

  18. Was it really though, its not like Russia was losing the war or much morale to actually win 'support' for a real rebellion to gain traction.

  21. Europe and US whose cultures are aggressive, hypocritical, selfish, mean, sly etc. as proven by their colonising of others in d last 300 years are now bent on defeating Russia and China.
    Hence both R & China are now joining hands to defend their interests.
    Until and unless d West has a wise and shrewd political leader realising and practising peaceful coexistence, we shall no peace in d world.

  23. DW..what are you? Dim Witted news channel?..You need to change your team and priorities, before you DROWN in your mistakes.

  24. What kind of analyst is Sean? Putin isn't holding a gun fighting prigozhin men..its his solders. most of putin men that was standing in prigozhin mercenaries was inexperienced and they were scared . So they would have marched all the way into putin's office ..but prigozhin was outfoxed

  26. Putin has definitely consolidated his power. He’s removed generals who he suspected were Prigozhin-friendly, he has installed leaders in Wagner who are more amenable to his wishes, Nevalney’s dead and the war in Ukraine is largely going his way.

    The first commentator is out of his freakin’ mind.

    The only real potential problem is from within the FSB where some were quietly critical of the Ukraine venture but, even this does not mean they are anti-Putin.

  32. That guy was just a hot dog seller. Completely y
    useless after all. Even with guns and manpower he stopped short of Moscow without apparent reason. So idiotic that he even took a flight from Moscow and blew up. He was better off selling hot dogs 🌭

  42. the bottom line of this video is the fantasy that the mutiny succeeded and Putin was deposed. it is and always will be a fantasy.

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