Death, impeachment, and arrest—all this strengthened the power of Russian President Vladimir Putin in just one month after the uprising of Wagner’s mercenaries led by Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The death of Prigozhin after the crash in the Tver region of the plane in which he was together with the commander of the “Wagner” PMK Dmytro Utkin and other persons close to him is only the latest in a series of events, thanks to which the message received by potential dissidents in Russia of the Kremlin leader is clear : Putin is still in control.

Although the circumstances of the crash are currently unclear and are unlikely to be clarified by Russian authorities to the general public, the first information released after the incident from photographs and video footage suggests that the plane was shot down by a Russian military air defense system. .

The symbolism is strong: Prigogine was killed by the same Russian army that repeatedly targeted Chief Wagner in his fierce criticism of the ammunition he claimed his mercenaries fighting in Ukraine were not receiving.

In one of his outbursts of anger, Wagner’s boss also said that the actions of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov could be equated to acts of treason.

“This is already an attempt to destroy Wagner’s private army, a fact that can be compared to treason. “Meanwhile, Wagner’s private army continues to wage a bloody battle for Bakhmut and loses hundreds of fighters every day,” he said on February 21 this year.

But the military uprising it sparked on the night of June 23-24 was seen by many analysts as a personal affront to President Vladimir Putin, with some calling it the biggest challenge to Putin’s power in the 20 years he has ruled Russia.

In fact, The Washington Post wrote in a wide-ranging investigation published on July 25 after talks with European and Ukrainian security officials that Vladimir Putin “was paralyzed and unable to act decisively” in the first hours of the uprising in the Kremlin, which is in complete confusion. .

What happened between the conclusion of the agreement brokered by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko on June 24, when the Wagner convoys were headed for Moscow, and the moment of Prigozhin’s death this Wednesday, is likely to remain shrouded in mystery, with many theories circulating. sense.

What is certain is that Prigozhin’s death shows that no one who questions the power of Vladimir Putin is immune, no matter how close they are to Moscow’s power circles.

“General Armageddon”, beheaded on the day of Prigozhin’s death

The crash of the plane on which Prigozhin was on board occurred after the Russian state news agency “RIA Novosti” reported on Wednesday morning, citing a source familiar with the situation, that “the former commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces, Sergei Surovikin, was dismissed from his post “. duties, they are temporarily performed by the Chief of the General Staff of the Air Force, Colonel-General Viktor Afzalov”.

On Wednesday, Russian journalist Oleksii Venediktov, the former editor-in-chief of the radio station “Echo of Moscow” banned by the Russian authorities after the start of the “special operation” announced that Surovikin was officially dismissed from his post. At the same time, Venediktov did not specify where he got this information from.

But then this was announced independently by RBC, the largest Russian financial TV channel, and Rybar, a Telegram channel close to the Russian Ministry of Defense. The fact that the information was confirmed on Wednesday by RIA Novosti is a de facto official statement in this sense, given the control that Moscow authorities exercise over the press.

Interestingly, there has been much speculation about the fate of General Surovikin after he has not been seen in public since the day of the Wagner mercenary uprising, but Russian state media confirmed something about him for the first time on Wednesday. Previously, the Kremlin classified the information appearing in the public space about “general Armageddon” into the category of “gossip.”

Surovikin was considered close to Wagner’s mercenaries, and Yevhen Prigozhin repeatedly praised him after Putin appointed him commander-in-chief of the forces invading Ukraine on October 8 last year.

Journalists of The New York Times wrote on June 28, citing American intelligence, that Surovikin would be suspected of treason because he supported the uprising of Wagner’s mercenaries. On the same day, The Moscow Times, citing its own sources close to the Russian Ministry of Defense, reported on the general’s arrest.

“The situation with him was not “okay” for the authorities. I can’t say anything else,” one of the sources commented on the reason for the arrest at the time. “In the context of Prigozhin, one gets the impression that he [Surovkin] chose a side [mercenarilor Wagner] and they caught him for his “eggs,” said a second source in the Ministry of Defense in Moscow.

Literally a day later, information appeared that it was Surovikin’s recorded video message asking the Wagnerites to stop the uprising and retreat to the barracks that convinced the Kremlin of his betrayal.

Documents obtained exclusively by CNN journalists on June 30 showed that the general was not only close to Yevgeny Prigozhin, but was also an active member of the Wagner paramilitary group headed by him. The documents show that Surovikin has a personal number in Wagner’s group, as do at least 30 other Russian military and intelligence officers.

The independent Russian investigative website “Dossier Center” then claimed that they were “VIP members” of a military group created by Prigozhin after the illegal annexation of Crimea and the start of the separatist conflict in Donbas 9 years ago.

Although Russian state media did not directly mention it, Surovikin could only be fired as commander of the Russian Air Force by decree of President Vladimir Putin. The whereabouts and fate of the general after the mercenary uprising remain unknown.

“Strelkov”, arrested by the FSB of Russia

The disappearance of Prigozhin and Surovikin from the Russian information space came a little more than a month after another event that made waves in Russia: the arrest of Igor “Strelkov” Girkin, a former commander of pro-Russian separatists in Donbas, who later became one of the most famous Russian military bloggers.

If in the first months of the war, Girkin blamed the failures and failures of the Russian armed forces on the incompetence of the military command in Moscow, criticizing, in particular, the Minister of Defense, then at the end of last year he began to criticize President Vladimir Putin as well.

“It’s not just me… people are not blind and deaf at all: middle-class people there don’t even hide their views, which, I’ll put it this way, are not entirely pleasant to either the president or the minister of defense,” he said in one of the first such messages published on December 11, 2022.

In a scathing 90-minute video in which he analyzed Russia’s conduct of the war, Girkin also spoke of a “fish head that is completely rotten” and called for measures to reform the army.

In another message from March of this year, he claimed that the only times President Vladimir Putin is real and not a double is when the Kremlin leader appears alone or at one end of the table, away from his guests.

“The real Volodymyr Volodymyrovych was at Christmas, sitting alone in the Kremlin church. unmarried! The priests were probably afraid to approach him. It was probably a sniper who warned that he would shoot if they came closer than 20 meters. This is the real Volodymyr Volodymyrovych, who, when receiving ministers, sits alone on the side of the table and looks at them through binoculars: “Where are they?” he said then.

Literally a month later, Girkin announced the creation of the so-called “club of angry patriots”, blaming Russia for the military defeat. “We entered into a long and protracted war, for which our economy was completely unprepared. Our army and political system were not ready for this either,” he said in an address sent on April 2.

In another direct attack on the Russian president, which was broadcast just last month, Girkin said that Putin, as a military leader, should not hide and take the reins of war.

“And where is Putin? Peskov makes a statement from time to time and says that Putin knows what is happening, that he is aware of what is happening. You know what, you can give the report to the mummy after all. The mummy is lying down, you approach it, say hello and you can report: let me familiarize you with the situation. This and that happen. The mummy is silent. Have you filed a report? Well, they gave it. The result is obvious,” the accused Girkin said on June 9.

His arrest late last month was seen as a clear message that criticism of Putin will no longer be tolerated inside Russia as it prepares for a protracted war against Ukraine.

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