Wagner’s ‘coup’ was just the first act in its plot to destroy Putin
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Yevgeny Prigozhin’s march on Moscow may have been aborted, but two weeks on the Kremlin is still reeling from his overt challenge to Vladimir Putin’s power. According to reports, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) has gone so far as to run an initial inquiry into levels of public support, gauged by monitoring social media posts and internet searches by ordinary Russians.
Its findings, intercepted and leaked by Ukrainian intelligence, suggests that 17 of Russia’s 46 regions sided with Prigozhin. Putin had support from just 21 regions, while the remaining eight remained split. Moscow apparently backed the Russian President, but his home city of St Petersburg was ready to throw its support behind the Wagner chief. Public support for Prigozhin in the republic of Dagestan was reportedly as high as 97 per cent.
Perhaps Putin is finally waking up, realising that the nation he thought he’d had in his palm could soon scatter. During the Covid lockdowns and in the months since the invasion, he became a near-recluse, seldom photographed outside the Kremlin. But in recent days he has been popping up across the country for meet and greets with the public. Dagestan was one of the first places he visited. And earlier this week, Putin announced that the region would be given £40 million in local infrastructure investment. If it looks like a panicked response to public unrest, then it probably is.
As for the Wagner group itself: in theory, it is being folded into the Russian army, but in practice, it’s actively recruiting from its new base in Belarus and isn’t shy about branching out once again to Russia. Telegram channels have called on subscribers to gather in St Petersburg this weekend at an event. “We will distribute t-shirts, patches, badges, stickers,” they promise. They don’t say that Prigozhin himself will show up, but he could.
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