Russia is on the brink of a “serious state crisis” as evidenced by the failed uprising by the Wagner paramilitary group in late June, and risks ushering in an “era of unrest,” jailed dissident Ilya Yashin has warned in a written statement. interview with the French daily Le Figaro, reports AFP and Agerpres.

The uprising, started by Wagner’s boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, “showed a lot of serious problems in the Russian government,” says Yasin, who was sentenced in April to eight and a half years in prison for criticizing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian system “is based only on the personal loyalty” of the military and civil servants to President Vladimir Putin, and “as that loyalty weakened,” the system began to fall apart at the seams, according to Yasin.

Wagner’s mercenaries shook power on June 24, marching on Moscow before turning back after a deal brokered under extreme conditions by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

“Putin publicly demonstrated his weakness by making harsh statements against Prigozhin, which were not accompanied by equally harsh actions. Wagner’s fighters went to Moscow. But in the end, Prigozhin did not bear responsibility. He is alive and apparently healthy. Criminal investigation The rebels saw that in a critical the situation, Putin hesitates and that in the face of real power he is afraid to take decisive measures”, – analyzes the imprisoned opponent.

The Russian army surrendered to the bandit

The Russian army “surrendered to a gang of mercenaries led by a thug,” he adds.

“The authorities have created a serious state crisis that risks ushering in an era of unrest. Putin is literally on the way to creating an existential threat to our country with his own hands,” according to Yasin, who says that “the role of the democratic opposition is to save Russia, liberate it and return it to a civilized society.”

Ilya Yashin, detained in Moscow’s “Medved” pre-trial detention center, says that he is “resisting”. “It is important for me to remain a Russian public voice against war and tyranny,” he says, calling on the West to stand up to Putin. “If it is not stopped in Ukraine, it will go all the way to the Baltic countries and Warsaw,” he says.

In fact, Andriy Kartapolov, the chairman of the defense committee of the State Duma (the lower house of the Russian parliament), said on Sunday on Russian state television that Wagner’s mercenaries were sent to Belarus “not only and not so much” to train the armed forces of Belarus, as previously reported by Crimea Realities, a project of Radio Liberty, the Russian antenna of Radio Liberty.

“There is the so-called Suvalk corridor. And this Suvalk corridor, if anything, we really need it,” said Kartapolov.

“It’s about preparing a strike force that will conquer this cursed corridor in a few hours,” said a Russian lawmaker quoted by the German newspaper Bild.

For the effective defense of the Suwalki Corridor in Lithuania, it is necessary to deploy brigades of NATO allies, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said in June at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

The Suwalki Corridor is a strip of land between Belarus and the Kaliningrad Region of the Russian Federation, named after the Polish city of Suwalki located on this territory.

Russian propagandists often mention this in connection with the fact that, in the event of a hypothetical conquest, it will connect the Kaliningrad region with Belarus, “cutting off” Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia from other NATO countries.

On July 14, the Ministry of Defense of Belarus confirmed the fact of the arrival of mercenaries of the “Wagner” PMK to a camp in the Mogilev region, publishing a report that the “Wagners” began training Belarusian territorial troops in a camp near the city of Osypovychi, Crimea reports. The real ones.