From a covert operation to a rebellion: four interpretations of what happened in Russia with Wagner

When ten days have passed since the march of the mercenaries of the Grupo Wagner from Ukraine toward Moscowlittle is still known about an incident that at first seemed to lead to a civil war in Russia. Was it a rebellion, an aborted coup attempt, a staging…?

The questions, to this day, exponentially multiply the certainties, so from The debate We have asked four prestigious international analysts on this matter to interpret what happened between June 23 and 24, which put the whole world on edge.

It’s about retired diplomats Javier Ruperez, Innocent Arias, Juan Gonzalez-Cebrian y Ramon de Miguel. All of them admit the difficulty of offering a vision of an event that is still hot – they were asked a few days after it happened – and about which they do not have direct information, although, in reality, almost no one does.

Even so, as a result of the decades of international baggage in the highest diplomatic spheres that all of them treasure, they launch into giving their opinion on what, firstwas a fight between the leader of the aforementioned private mercenary company, Yevgeny Prigozhinand the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.

Javier Ruperez

Javier Ruperez begins by indicating that “we do not know everything” about this event: “I do not know if there is someone who knows everything, but what we do intuit is that the Russian system was already greatly weakened, despite being a violent autocracy. And what has highlighted this revolution, to call it somehow, has been precisely that the fragility of Putin’s system is increasingly evident.

“Naturally, that also leads to a whole series of considerations about what the Russians collectively should take into account, which is the modernization of their own national values, to become a respectable country, which at the moment it is not, under no concept,” he adds.

Crisis interna

“Does that mean we are already seeing the end of the Putin era? I would very much like it, but I don’t know. What I do see is that there is a major crisis within the system and that the Wagner uprising itself has highlighted it. Where exactly are we going to go? Don’t know. I am troubled by the claim by some commentators that anything after Putin would be worse. But the question is, is there anything worse than Putin? Not that Wagner excites me, but to say that any alternative to Putin would be worse is to say that Putin is eternal. I believe that from the national or international point of view it is important that it disappear from circulation », he explains.

Russia, which is one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and which has the right of veto, has become an international war criminal.

“It is important – he continues – that Russia tries to return to rational behavior. With the complications that we are seeing these days, we have forgotten the obvious, and that is that Russia is one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. and that this permanent member, who has the right of veto, has become an international war criminal and, consequently, has endangered the entire international system, which is naturally not perfect, but has guaranteed stability and prosperity for the last few years. 80 years. That’s what we have to take into account.”

For Rupérez it is a unknown what will be the evolution of these events and “if indeed the Ukrainians are able to take advantage of the fragility of the russians and eventually get to what we have to get to, which is for the Russians to lose and be forced to withdraw and fully acknowledge all the territorial integrity of Ukraine. And there is no other remedy.” “About all those who are talking about diplomatic solutions – ditch – there should be no solutions that entail the cession of territories, because that would be as much as recognizing the criminal’s reason and that would put us in an absolutely untenable international situation. Let’s hope in the meantime that Mr. de Wagner is not thrown out of one of the windowsas Putin usually does with his enemies ».

Innocent Arias

Innocent Arias He admits that “there are many theories” about what happened in Russia. “I don’t know what the truth is. Some even hold something that today it seems nonsense and it is that everything was orchestrated by Putin himself with Prigozhin, to stop and stop him and show that he controls the situation and the other is unable to get to Moscow. It seems a bit crazy to me. It seems more accurate to me that Prigozhin was fed up with the fact that the Russian Army did not collaborate with him, that it was jealous of him, and even that at some point it did not send him the ammunition he needed. He has seen that he was applauded in various places and that his people were very efficient and so it has gone to his head and he has gone to Moscow and halfway there he realized that up to that moment they had not bombed him, but that if there was an attempt at civil war, he was going to lose it and then he has thrown in the towel”, he details.

How did the CIA already say on Wednesday June 21 that this could happen and Putin ignores it? Why didn’t he order to bomb them massively when the column began to march towards Moscow?

Arias, however, admits that “there are several strange things, such as Putin not realizing that this was going to happen, this riot or this attempted riot. As the CIA already said on Wednesday –June 21– that this could happen and Putin ignores it? And, on the other hand, why didn’t he order to bomb them massively when the column began to march towards Moscow? They are strange things and one does not quite understand where the shots go ».

“But then, on the other hand, that Putin comes out cracked is obvious. It’s not that she’s lost power, far from it. He is going to take power again, only some people will question the way in which Putin runs the country, something that has not been questioned until now », he argues.

«There is a very symptomatic fact, which has been commented on in Spain, but not enough, and that is that Prigozhin, before proclaiming that he was going to Moscow, said in a video that 11 million Russians have seen that ‘the reasons given for invading Ukraine They are a hoax, they are a hoax, that Ukraine was not going to attack and that Russia was not in danger. This you have to know, this is a maneuver of a group of corrupt that they have convinced the leadership and that they have launched, but this is false, the Ukrainians were not going to invade us’. This completely breaks the justificatory thesis of aggression. It goes totally against it. And on this occasion a guy in a cafe or in a little article in a newspaper has not said it and goes to jail; It was said by a guy who has a certain prestige, even if it is a gangster and a thief. This is going to make the Russians think something », she concludes.

Juan Gonzalez-Cebrian

Juan González-Cebrián apologizes that he has been out of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with which the vision is reduced to the public information that appeared in the media. That said, he points out that he is “strange” the way in which this has developed alleged rebellion. «It seems surprising to me that the Wagner Group, that this gentleman – in reference to Prigozhin – has been able to advance so much within what is Russia and approaching 200 kilometers from Moscow without having hardly resisted, without having practically fired a shot. Having arrived there, and, suddenly, because President Putin tells him ‘look, go to Belarus, nothing will happen, and your mercenaries withdraw’ this man turns around and leaves, it seems very strange to me “, considers.

I find it amazing that they entered as if they were Napoleon, as if they were Hitler in World War II into Russian territory and arrived at the gates of Moscow

«Russia – he continues –, of course, is not USAit’s not ChinaBut wow, it’s a powerhouse and it has an army. And although these mercenaries are people very accustomed to what all the military maneuversetc., I find it amazing that they entered as if they were Napoleonas if they were Hitler in World War II on Russian territory and arrived at the gates of Moscow. I can think that maybe there is a covert operation by Putin himself, to make these people, in a Machiavellian maneuver, go to Belarus to unleash an offensive through that country, since belarus it is the closest to kyiv and is a puppet country of Russia. That from Belarus, the mercenaries go to seek refuge and find forgiveness for their sins, that from there they can advance on KievWell I do not know”.

«This are lucubrations I do and I have no basis, but I am amazed at what has happened: that they have turned against the Russian Government, that they have entered a country like Russia and that they have advanced hundreds of kilometers without meeting the slightest resistance and they have told them that ‘if you are good, we forgive you’ seems very strange to me”, insists González-Cebrián, who stresses that this situation worries the Baltic countries.

Ramon de Miguel

Finally, Ramon de Miguel He admits that he does not have “great knowledge of what is happening in Russia at the moment, but what is evident is that a war is always an absolutely extraordinary situation that weakens countries.”

What has happened there has been an attempt to force a ‘putsch’ to change something that has not gone ahead

“Russia is not only using enormous human and financial resources and the country is not doing well, on top of that it is suffering many economic reprisals from most of the western world, precisely to see if the war will stop and that makes us have a weak situation».

«If to this situation of weakness we add the quarrels between the oligarchs who run Russia and, I imagine, the jealousy that many of those oligarchs have of President Putin, because that gives the idea that what has happened there has been a attempt to putsch of strength to change something that has not gone ahead. But that does not mean that the situation is totally pacified and that there is not a weakness in the system, which there is. I believe that we are still going to see many things in Russia in the coming months », he concludes.