MOSCOW, June 30. /TASS/. The mutiny that was staged by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the private military company Wagner, was doomed to fail from the very start because it didn’t gain support from Russians, who instead rallied around the Russian president, Alexey Martynov, a director at the International Institute of the Newly Established States, said on Friday.
He made the comment during a roundtable discussion organized by the Expert Institute for Social Research. The discussion was titled Prigozhin’s Mutiny: Why It Couldn’t End in Success.
"Prigozhin's protest was doomed to failure from the very beginning. One of the key factors was the lack of support for the rebellion from the citizens, their consolidation around the president," said Martynov.
He said the resolution of the crisis was made possible by the personal involvement of the head of state.
"He fulfilled the main mission of the president in our country: The president is the guarantor of the constitution and security," said Martynov. "Our society instantly took in the situation and consolidated around the president. It reacts to such things has been clear. The real participants of the special military operation, veterans, military, security forces also reacted instantly - by rallying around the flag and condemning the mutiny."
Maksim Grigoryev, a director at the Foundation for Research of Democracy Issues and a member of the Russian Civic Camber, said the president "once again showed his wisdom when he gave the rebels an opportunity to come to their senses."
"And it is extremely important that it was possible to save the lives of civilians, soldiers, security forces, and the Wagner fighters themselves," Grigoryev said.
He said, all things considered, the members of the mutiny did not have enough forces and equipment to allow them to reach Moscow.
Political analyst Marat Bashirov said that it was a rebellion of dozens, not thousands.
"Most of PMC Wagner fighters did not know where they were going at all," he said.
On the evening of June 23, Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Telegram that his units had been attacked, putting the blame for that on the country’s military leadership. The Defense Ministry said the allegations were false. Wagner units that backed Prigozhin started marching on Rostov-on-Don, a city in southern Russia, and on Moscow. The Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, started a criminal investigation into a call for an armed mutiny.
Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the nation, describing the PMC Wagner’s actions as treason.
Lukashenko, in coordination with Putin, then held talks with Prigozhin, following which PMC Wagner turned back its troops and moved them to their field camps. The Kremlin said that PMC Wagner fighters would not be prosecuted, given their combat merits. The investigation into the armed mutiny was dropped.