"The actions of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner PMC, is the logical conclusion of the aggressive eccentricity we have witnessed since last autumn."
This statement was made by the Georgian journalist and political analyst Natia Koberidze to Ednews.
She noted that the illegal military formation created by the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) joined the battlefield and began to acquire resources after it became clear that the Russian army was not able to implement V. Putin's original plan "to take Kyiv in three days":
"Obviously, the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and the Russian General Staff were against allowing Wagner to take part in military operations in the occupied territories. But, it is clear that Prigozhin had serious support from the Russian ruling elite, and finally, he joined the front. No doughts that Prigozhin had a commercial interest in gaining income from the state budget. So, he started to receive the most impressive amount of resources and. had freedom of action. Wagner received many Russian prisoners and used them as a cover in the war.
According to Koberidze, in November 2022, something began to change unexpectedly:
"Especially after the liberation of Kharkiv and part of Kherson. When the Ukrainians destroyed Russian units with American Himars and the front fell, Prigozhin began to throw a tantrum about allegedly the lack of ammunition, behaved hostile and defiantly, scolded the military leadership of the Russian Federation, and even ambiguously mocked President Putin.
N. Kobaridze believes that he got away with everything. Clearly, Prigozhin had serious support in Moscow and acted in the interests of part of the elite. Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry and the General Staff tried to limit the possibilities and actions of Wagner. All went to the disbandment of the PMC, as a result of which, Prigozhin must have been killed.
Moreover, according to the Georgian journalist, Prigozhin had no intention of staging a coup d'état:
"Putin's chef skills are limited enough to have political ambitions. But, he desperately tried to survive: to get out of the front, which is doomed to failure sooner or later, and to avoid the threat of being murdered. Actually, he succeeded. By all the logic of the modern Russian state machine, Prigozhin should have been killed during marching to Moscow and even last year. Everyone was shocked at how unprecedentedly stubborn he was. But, in the end, he even dared to imitate a military coup, but remained unpunished."
She noted that the illegal military formation created by the State Intelligence office (GRU) collapsed yet, but it is shaken a lot:
"The West could not help Prigozhin because Wagner was recognized as a terrorist organization. However, Ukrainians could give Wagnerians the "gift" of the so-called victory in Bakhmut. Because this victory legitimized Wagner and showed them as the only successful unit at the front and made them strong enough to try to undermine Putin's power. Which they did.
Natia Kobaridze, to the question, "Can this be called the beginning of Russian Smuta-time of troubles," answered that we will see it quite soon:
"The whole world, and first of all, the Russians, saw a frightened Putin, who made a terrible mistake of comparing Prigozhin's fake march with the 1917 coup and left the murderer and traitor unpunished."
According to N. Kobaridze, every weakness of the Russian government helps Ukraine.
"And in the Caucasus, the number of refugees from Russia will grow, which brings serious demographic and economic problems and endangers the security of all three states," the journalist concluded.
Ulviyya Shahin
