Front Burner - What just happened in Russia?

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

After the Wagner Group’s leader made threats against Russian military leadership on Friday, Wagner mercenaries came over the border from Ukraine, captured a military headquarters, and marched toward... the capital. The world discussed whether a coup was unfolding. But after just 36 hours of rebellion, Belarus announced it had brokered a deal for the Wagner Group to turn around, and for its leader to leave the country unscathed. It was a confusing end to a chaotic insurgency. Today, Washington Post reporter Mary Ilyushina returns to discuss why the Wagner Group stopped, why President Vladimir Putin was so soft on a “mutiny,” and what this could mean for the future of the Kremlin and the conflict in Ukraine. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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Starting point is 00:00:00 In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Saroja Coelho. We are at the headquarters. It's 7.30 a.m. We have taken Rostov's military objects under our control. This video was how the leader of Wagner Group announced it captured a military headquarters inside Russia on Saturday.
Starting point is 00:00:48 The head of the general staff fled from here as soon as he found out we were approaching the building. Yevgeny Prigozhin had been ranting against Russia's military leadership in Ukraine for months, where Wagner is fighting alongside the Russian army as a mercenary group. But after escalating his threats on Friday, Prigozhin brought his fighters back over the border into Russia and marched towards the capital. There are reports of fighting between Russian troops and Wagner mercenaries in and around the city of Voronezh, just eight hours from the capital. The 36-hour rebellion saw tanks, helicopters, anti-aircraft fire in the streets. Wagner says it made it within just 200 kilometers of Moscow. People were bracing for a coup.
Starting point is 00:01:38 In Moscow, riot police and the National Guard have been scrambling to tighten security at key facilities. We are now in utterly unprecedented territory for the 23 years in which Vladimir Putin has run Russia. Then, as suddenly and shockingly as that incursion began, Wagner turned back. An armed uprising in Russia has come to an abrupt end after striking a deal with the Kremlin. The Kremlin has credited Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko with brokering the deal, which ensured Prokosian would leave for Belarus and that all charges related to the mutiny would be dropped. It's a confusing outcome that raises questions about
Starting point is 00:02:18 the future of Wagner and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Like, how does a notoriously vicious mercenary group give up while staging an apparent coup? Or why would Vladimir Putin. Like, how does a notoriously vicious mercenary group give up while staging an apparent coup? Or why would Vladimir Putin let the orchestrator of a so-called mutiny simply walk away? To make as much sense out of this weekend as we can, I'm joined now by Marya Lushina. She is a reporter covering Russia for The Washington Post. Hi, Mary. Hello. You spoke with us about Wagner Group in January, so I would encourage anyone who wants to know more about its history
Starting point is 00:03:00 to find that episode in our feed. But just for a quick recap, since the Wagner group isn't officially part of Russia's military, why have they been fighting for Russia in Ukraine? So Wagner is this paramilitary force that's been operating in the shadows. Mercenary service is technically illegal in Russia, but the Kremlin has been using this group for nearly a decade now to do weird operations all around the world. The group started actually in eastern Ukraine in around 2014,
Starting point is 00:03:30 where they were fighting on behalf of Kremlin. Overnight, dozens of armed pro-Russian forces seized control of the international airport and military airport in Ukraine's Crimea region, a day after pro-Russian gunmen took over government buildings in the city. And at the time, the Kremlin was saying that it has, you know, it's not a party to the conflict, that it's just Ukrainians fighting Ukrainians. But in fact, Wagner was very much there and was doing the Kremlin's bidding. And that's been very useful for Russia for a very long time because it gave them plausible deniability, allowed them to lower sort of the number of casualties Russia sustained,
Starting point is 00:04:08 for example, in Syria. And eventually they were one of the key fighting forces in the Ukrainian war that Russia launched last year. By some estimates, there are up to 50,000 Wagner mercenaries fighting in Ukraine. According to Western officials, they make up a staggering 25% of total Russian combatants, an army within an army. But even though the Kremlin never acknowledged Wagner's existence, or at least the connection with them, since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, things have changed. Now we have an open conversation about Wagner. Their leader, Evgeny Prigozhin, has also emerged into the public.
Starting point is 00:04:50 Yeah, and it's been a really stunning reversal because, you know, Prigozhin used to sue people for saying that he is bankrolling Wagner. Kremlin also put up the charade for years saying they have no dealings with them, that Putin doesn't really talk to Prigozhin or anything of the sort. And now, you know, we were at a stage earlier this year when Vladimir Putin was openly saying thank you to Wagner, illegal mercenary service for capturing Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, which was the longest and the bloodiest battle in the war so far. And a lot of experts were kind of concerned about Putin's decision to allow this person to have what essentially is a private army. And they were saying, this is kind of a ticking bomb. And Friday night, we started noticing how this bomb is beginning, began to explode. Trouble brewing within the Russian ranks.
Starting point is 00:05:33 The leader of the Russian mercenary Wagner group calling for an armed mutiny, claiming his fighters were attacked by the regular Russian army. The situation so serious tonight that state television broke into scheduled programming to deliver this message from the Russian Ministry of Defense. All the messages and video footage spread on social networks on behalf of Evgeny Prigozhin is not true and is an informational provocation. There is a really interesting relationship between Putin and Prigozhin that goes back a long, long time. But all of a sudden, last year, Prigozhin starts publicly criticizing Russia's military on social media,
Starting point is 00:06:16 some very fiery videos that he put out. What has he taken exception with? So before these events, he was very careful not to criticize Vladimir Putin for anything. He kept saying that he's very loyal to him, that he supports the war in Ukraine. The problem in Prigodin's mind was the military, the regular forces, and the leaders of those forces, because he accused the defense minister and the overall commander of the operation in Ukraine of incompetence, of being corrupt, being this out-of-touch elite that doesn't know how to fight. On the battlefield, he brazenly calls out Russia's Ministry of Defense for the death of his fighters,
Starting point is 00:06:56 hurling insults at the defense minister and chief of staff and calling them out by name. We have a 70% shortage of ammunition. Shoigu, Gerasimov, where is the ammunition? Look at them. But on Friday night, he started saying that essentially Putin was tricked into invading Ukraine, that Ukraine actually never planned to attack Russia together with NATO, which is really the whole premise of the invasion,
Starting point is 00:07:22 the way the Kremlin put it at the time. The defense ministry tried to deceive the public and the president. Therefore, the so-called special operation of the 24th of February was started for other reasons. The war was needed for the self-promotion of a bunch of bastards to show off what a strong army it is, so that Defense Minister Sergei Shogu gets a marshal. So that was, again, a huge departure from his previous rhetoric. And then, you know, on Saturday, when Putin kind of finally spoke out and accused Prigozhin of being essentially a traitor and of backstabbing the Kremlin, Prigozhin for the first time kind of issued
Starting point is 00:08:02 this direct criticism of Vladimir Putin saying the president is wrong and that Wagner didn't betray Russia. He just doesn't want to see Russia live in this corruption and deception any longer. What has he specifically said that the military leadership has done? Why is he appearing to call them incompetent or even an impediment in Ukraine. Well, he said that the initial planning of the war was done very poorly, that the intelligence was bad at the very beginning of the invasion. An enormous territory is lost. There are three to four times more soldiers killed than it's reported up to command. And what is reported is 10 times less than what is told on TV.
Starting point is 00:08:47 Then he accused the defense ministries or the top brass of not training Russian soldiers enough. As we know, there was mobilization last fall and there were thousands of fighters who were thrown in battle without really a lot of preparation, maybe a couple of days. And some of them never had any military experience. It's essentially cannon fodder. And he said that this was a wasted kind of resource, that they should have been smarter
Starting point is 00:09:13 about this. He accused, especially accused the Shoigu, who is the defense minister, of not providing Wagner with enough ammunition. We have to say that probably at the time, the Russian army was trying to save ammunition for the counteroffensive. And we've seen that they've been hitting Ukraine with sort of a lot of the stockpiled things, but Prigozhin put it to suggest that the regular army was trying to make Wagner fail.
Starting point is 00:09:39 And that is in his mind was also kind of treasonous because Bakhmut was something Putin really wanted to get. And this really is the only win Russia has seen in months after failure after failure. And he's also constantly been accusing sort of Russian elites of not being harsh enough, of not supporting the war. In his mind, he was even trying to kind of pitch Russians this North Korea style life for a few years, because he believed only in that authoritarian regime it would be possible for Russia to stand a chance of winning. When the children of the elite apply cream on themselves
Starting point is 00:10:18 and upload it to Instagram, YouTube, and so on, and the children of ordinary people come back in zinc coffins, Teared to pieces. All of these divisions can end in what is a revolution, Just like in 1917. I recommend to the elite of the Russian Federation, Gather your children, send them to war.
Starting point is 00:10:39 When you come to a funeral and start burying them, People will say, it is all fair now. All of this tension, these two powerful men trying to own different narratives in different ways, that brings us to Saturday. Prigozhin says his fighters have crossed from Ukraine over the border back into Russia. And where did they go to confront Russia's military? So they went to Rostov-on-Don, which is a southwestern city. It's important strategically because there is a southern command post, which is essentially the headquarters of the Russian army
Starting point is 00:11:19 that plans a lot of operations in Ukraine from there. It's not the only command post, but it's one of the sort of closest ones. And he went to the city with his fighters, and he appeared to have taken this building without really any resistance. And he essentially stayed there throughout an entire day, and his other kind of fighters with a lot of heavy equipment moved further from Rostov on the way to Moscow. And there was a real militarized presence visible in the streets, helicopters, tanks, anti-aircraft fire.
Starting point is 00:11:53 What violence do we know about, if any, actually unfolded as Wagner was marching? So it was really chaotic and quite hard to pin anything down. really chaotic and quite hard to pin anything down but so far the even pro-defense ministry sources have been saying that three pieces of aircraft have been shot down apparently there was a crew who was either injured or killed but we saw a lot of kind of preparation we saw roadblocks on the highways leading up to moscow we saw tractors destroying roads on sort of the pathway of wagner to prevent them from advancing further we saw theors destroying roads on sort of the pathway of Wagner to prevent them from advancing further. We saw the Russian National Guard being deployed, although it appeared to have not done much. And in general, in Rostov, it was quite strange because the people there,
Starting point is 00:12:38 at least some of them seem to be quite receptive and warm towards Wagner. They weren't, you know, rattled. And by the end of the day, like local outlets and reporters have said that it was kind of turned into a sort of festival and celebration. Which is a really odd turn of events, given that their city center was captured by heavily armed men, masked men,
Starting point is 00:13:02 with, you know, quite scary intentions of going towards the Kremlin. I cannot help. I used to be a correspondent in Eastern Europe. And for me, it's kind of amazing to me. It kind of blows my mind to think about these are two forces that were fighting side by side in Ukraine. And minutes later, one is shooting the other out of the sky, allegedly. What is your reaction to that as someone who is observing this as it unfolds? Well, I think one point is that it is a little bit long time coming because Putin's strategy, you know, he's kind of known for thriving on chaos. He's known for pitting fractions and
Starting point is 00:13:43 factions against each other, sort of creating little fiefs so none of them grow so powerful and becomes a threat to him. So it kind of keeps everything in check. But this situation seems to have escalated kind of beyond that. And, you know, I guess it was a miscalculation on his part to kind of underestimate how far Prigozhin could go. And the result of that was really, I think, that Prigozhin felt a bit cornered because after Bakhmut, Wagner's role was not clear.
Starting point is 00:14:09 Shoigu demanded that his fighters sign official contracts with the regular army, which would essentially mean that he would lose control over Wagner. The defense minister wants to centralize all military activities under his command, but that's not going down well with the head of Russia's Wagner
Starting point is 00:14:25 mercenary group. Unfortunately, the majority of military units do not have such efficiency, and that is precisely because of Choygu's inability to properly manage the military formations. Therefore, what he writes or orders only applies to the Ministry of Defense and those within the Ministry of Defense. And the second thing is just, it's so bizarre. And like all of my colleagues have been kind of discussing this, it felt a little bit like a fever dream in a way. And it was like better than any, you know, screenwriter of any TV show could have written.
Starting point is 00:14:59 That is, you know, the way it all unfolded, how fast it was moving. I don't think anyone could have predicted that this would be the outcome of a person who essentially started with a catering business and then turned out into a warlord and almost started a mutiny. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem.
Starting point is 00:15:38 Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. Fifty percent. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. We've talked a lot about him, about Prigozhin. Let's turn around for a second, look
Starting point is 00:16:24 the other side of this. We also got a response from Vladimir, about Prigozhin. Let's turn around for a second and look at the other side of this. We also got a response from Vladimir Putin himself in the form of a television address, a very standard way to engage with the public. How did he describe the Wagner Group's moves? So he was very harsh in his rhetoric on Saturday morning. He said they are traitors that are essentially starting something that was very similar to 1917 revolution in Russia. This is an attempt to subvert us from inside. This is a stab in the back of our troops and the people of Russia. And that they have tried to undermine
Starting point is 00:17:00 the sovereignty and unity of Russia and made a really, really tough time. And he promised in that address that the punishment would be severe and that he will take tough action. And it was quite stunning to see in the evening that, you know, they've apparently struck a deal, which is, again, another very stunning reversal. Yeah, it really was. I mean, it felt like every hour or two, the entire thing was changing and turning around out of nowhere. We get an announcement not from Russia, but from the neighboring country, Belarus. Apparently, President Alexander Lukashenko had brokered a deal to de-escalate. So what is included in that? So the deal that they struck is very still mysterious. We don't know exactly
Starting point is 00:17:43 what was promised to Prigozhin, what Prigozhin promised in return, but Prigozhin turns his fighters around and Prigozhin explained he did that to avoid bloodshed because he again claimed that there was no blood spilled and he doesn't want any violence to ensue near Moscow. And in return, he would get to leave Russia and go to Belarus in a very unknown capacity.
Starting point is 00:18:07 It's not clear, would he still be head of Wagner? How much Wagner fighters he can keep? Apparently, it was I guess, at least he's supposed to go to Belarus, he has not been spotted there so far. But another condition was that the fighters who did not take part in what happened yesterday, that the fighters who did not take part in what happened yesterday would be kind of told to sign contracts with the regular army and be absorbed into the defense ministry but it looks like people who took part in it would be just pardoned and pedagogic apparently would be able to keep them so it's a very strange deal it's not not clear why Lukashenko was involved, really, because there's a lot of sort of bad history there as well. But it seems like it's not the end of it. It's not the last chapter in the story. We'll probably learn more details in the future about what exactly was promised.
Starting point is 00:18:56 But so far, this is what was stated. So where we've landed is that Prigozhin gets to essentially go and live in exile in Belarus. Why would Putin just let Prigozhin walk away? Well, that's honestly the million dollar question. And I'm myself asking experts about the thing. And it's, you know, some people think, you know, they have some secret deal together that we don't know. Some people suggested this was all a ploy to give Prigozhin what he wanted, but we don't exactly know what that is. There's so many conspiracy theories flying around that. So I don't have a really good answer as to why, because it definitely seems not in Putin's style or fashion to just let people go after they do literally the worst thing you can do to Vladimir
Starting point is 00:19:42 Putin, because he is known to say that being a traitor is the worst thing a human can be. And we know his kind of feelings towards that. So it makes it even more bizarre that he would let somebody go after doing this. And his kind of authoritarian aura feels definitely diminished after this weekend. weekend. It was such a surprise on Saturday to see the Wagner group take a military base, travel so far towards Moscow, and then suddenly decide to reverse course. I think that the question that sort of lingers there is why didn't Prigozhin go all the way? Well, I think in a way, there was probably an element of kind of freestyling here, because it felt a little bit like before Putin spoke, maybe there was an expectation in Prigozhin.
Starting point is 00:20:26 Again, I'm sort of speculating. My take on this is that he maybe thought there could be a deal reached and maybe he would be able to talk to Shoigu and keep Wagner intact and sort of get with one and then retreat. But then things have escalated and Putin spoke out. And, you know, again, this traitor accusation came in. A criminal case was actually opened against them and dropped like 12 hours later, which is also crazy. But I think that kind of changed things and we had to do something unplanned and unprepared and move them forward. But I think regions that are close to Ukraine, I think they're kind of used to seeing crazy things, they're very close to the front line. Moscow is kind of a bastion that is much more protected and there's definitely a lot more firepower around moscow so maybe he felt
Starting point is 00:21:11 like that would be really a battle if he moved forward and you know that would be not worth it or didn't want to lose people or be responsible for killing any civilians while at that so maybe he kind of evaluated the risk but again I honestly don't know why he turned around because I think a lot of it hangs on this deal that was reached that we don't just, we just don't know all the details of what was in that deal. But do you think he could have done it?
Starting point is 00:21:36 I mean, he's commanding an estimated 50,000 fighters. Most of them were in Ukraine. What was he up against in order to, I'm not even sure if the goal was to seize power and oust Putin? Exactly. We don't actually even know the goal. I don't think there was actually the goal to oust Putin. I think he was after Shoigu, and I think he would like to see him changed as defense minister. That doesn't also mean that he wants to be the defense minister. He just wants a person who he likes. And there are generals and officers that Grigory likes.
Starting point is 00:22:07 That obviously didn't happen. The 50,000 figure is, that's what U.S. assessed it to be in Ukraine. We have to remember that like 40,000 of that were convicts. A lot of them are dead now, and they're not the most loyal and trustworthy. Some unofficial Russian outlets are saying that he had about maybe several thousand in around Rostov and onward and quite a bit of equipment, but it wasn't 50,000 force there. So it's not a huge army. It's not like something that would be enough to take a city like Moscow, even hypothetically.
Starting point is 00:22:51 hypothetically. It's such a flex of power without any clarity around what exactly it was for, what exactly the goals were. It's really, really fascinating. But meanwhile, in the back behind all of what you're describing, the conflict in Ukraine continues. And Wagner has been a significant part of Russia's forces and their victories in Ukraine. So what effect could these last few days have on the conflict there? Well, I think operationally right now, it probably will not have a very significant impact because Wagner is an assault force. They are trained for offensive action. And right now, Russia is in the defense because Ukraine is conducting this counteroffensive. Russians are, they're dug in, they're waiting in the trenches behind fortifications that they spent months building. And Ukraine has to come through miles of mines. I think without Wagner right now, at least in a very short time period, we won't notice that much of a difference. I think one of the sort of big lingering questions before this mutiny was that
Starting point is 00:23:53 the role of Wagner in the war in Ukraine is now very unclear because they've retreated from Bakhmut around a month ago. But there is an aspect about the morale. You know, it's hard to assess how much information the soldiers in trenches are getting, Russian soldiers. But certainly a rumor of a potential immunity and somebody going after the Russian defense ministry could give people thoughts and ideas potentially. But again, it's hard to assess. Well, the flip-flopping also doesn't help. The message out of the Kremlin has gone in two directions at the same time. On Friday, the Kremlin was calling Przegorzhin's threats to overthrow military leadership treason,
Starting point is 00:24:33 worthy of 20 years in prison. And yet now he is free. There's a deal in place. So does that kind of compromise with someone who actually tried to march on the Capitol ultimately weaken Putin's grip on power? Well, I think a lot of people are definitely suggesting that because, first of all, his whole message and platform, his stability order and the promise to Russians
Starting point is 00:24:56 that they won't notice anything changed in their lives, even if there is a war going on. But that's obviously not the case anymore. That vow has been broken many, many times. And this is one of the craziest days of Russia has seen its modern history probably since the 1981, since the collapse of Soviet Union. So it's hard to see how, you know, his political order is being kind of respected here. feels like you know a lot of analysts at least suggesting that he is kind of less and less in control of the situation he's less visible um he's less public and he doesn't really tell the russian people about the goals and targets of this
Starting point is 00:25:38 operation but when it might end when the war might end why is this going on except for really kind of vague goals of neo-Nazis in Kiev that I think, you know, some people believe in, some people don't. At least from that point of view of the way he's been sort of presenting himself and what he was selling as a leader of the Russian Federation, that is, you know, hard to uphold now. Well, there are Russians, you were just talking about the collapse of the Soviet Union, there are Russians who will remember the failed coup in 1991, tanks in the street. But it does seem that that was a very different time. There had been a very long history of protest and dissent, a real sense of discontent across Soviet states and then across former Soviet states. across former Soviet states.
Starting point is 00:26:24 So if we look at the moment that we're in right now and the control over information in Russia right now, it feels like we're in a different moment in history. How likely do you think it is that we will see an actual successful coup in Russia today? I'm always skeptical of that because I think coup, especially as a public unrest, historically, I think kind of rarely works. It has to be the elite that has the will and desire to go through with this.
Starting point is 00:26:52 And so far, it's hard to say that they're there. The messaging is very restricted. It's very hard to kind of measure the mood in the Kremlin around Putin's elite. So I'm always on the skeptical side. Like, I don't want to go and say, like, tomorrow it will be all. So I'm always on the skeptical side. Like, I don't want to go and say, like, tomorrow, it will be all over because I don't think it will be. And I don't think at any point this weekend, there was a feeling that, you know, Putin will step down or anything like that. Like that was just not on the table. You know, I'm not gonna predict that anytime soon. Well, Mary, thank you so much for helping us understand what happened over the last
Starting point is 00:27:27 few days and placing it in as much context as you can at this point. Thank you. And that's it for this edition of FrontBurner. I'm Saroja Coelho. Thanks so much for tuning in.

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