Wagner Group. The mercenaries went to Moscow, but Yevgeny Prigozhin ordered a retreat. Expert comments

After the owner of the mercenary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, headed for Moscow with several thousand mercenaries, the Russian president Vladimir Putin he called the Wagnerians traitors and ensured that the rebels would be held accountable to the law and the nation, and Russia will be defended.

However, on Saturday evening, Prigozhin announced that he had given the order to turn back from Moscow. At the same time, Alyaksandr Lukashenko’s offices reported that the Belarusian dictator was the one who, with Putin’s consent, conducted Saturday’s negotiations with Prigozhin. The Kremlin announced that the Wagner Group mercenaries who moved towards Moscow – including their leader – would not be prosecuted, and Prigozhin himself would move to Belarus.

The events in Russia were commented on by the guests of the Saturday special edition of “Fakty po Faktach”.

Oleh Bilecki, a Ukrainian journalist reporting on the events of war in Ukraine also on TVN24, he said that “Russians can forgive their president literally everything – cruelty, barbarism, some other things.” – They can’t forgive just one thing. This thing is called weakness. And today, Vladimir Putin showed that weakness.

Biłecki said that it was not known what would happen to the Wagner Group and how the warfare on the Russian side would continue. – I will only say one thing – today we are dealing with the fact that the Russian society saw a completely different behavior of Vladimir Putin and we will probably still observe and feel the effects of this. Here, in my opinion, a small flame of positive – that perhaps great changes will start from this – he said.

Later in the program, the situation in Russia was commented on by Professor Agnieszka Legucka, an analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM), the Vistula Academy of Finance and Business, and Dr. Agnieszka Bryc from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Nicolaus Copernicus in Toruń.

Professor Legucka said that what happened in Russia on Saturday “was probably the biggest test of anti-crisis measures for the Putin system in years.” – And indeed Vladimir Putin showed weakness. Or – in other words – he reacted contrary to his previous practice – because he usually hid in the bunker and watched the situation from a distance – she noted. – He showed weakness. The Russians in Rostov fled the city in panic. It is clear that Russian society will not forget this, she added.

– We will see what social effect this current crisis will have, because for the outside world it is clearly a deep crack in the Kremlin and an exposure of Putin’s weaknesses. This is the first crack that can blow up the Kremlin towers, commented Dr. Agnieszka Bryc.

– However, in the eyes of society, this is proof that Putin coped with a situation that even threatened something reminiscent of 1917 (when the Bolshevik revolution took place – ed.) – she added.

Another guest of the program, the former GROM commander, General Roman Polko, assessed that the way Saturday’s situation in Russia resolved showed not only Putin’s weakness, but also Prigozhin’s.

– He was not ready to conquer Moscow, but in the process he exposed Moscow’s weakness when it comes to defense and security systems. It can be seen that Kiev is much more difficult to conquer than Moscow, he said. According to General Polsko, the head of the Wagnerians “led the rally in a bizarre way, because the only obstacles he encountered on the way were some trucks with sand or some excavator that was digging a hole somewhere in the asphalt.” “And in Moscow itself, security systems were built that would certainly not fulfill their role,” he added.

According to the former GROM commander, Prigożyn “had no idea what to do once he had captured Moscow.” – He did not present any appeal, a message that he would address to Russian soldiers to join him or the nation – he noted. – It was clear from the beginning that this was an emotional action, not well thought out, not well prepared, and therefore doomed to failure – added the TVN24 interlocutor.