Pak Sahafat – Contrary to predictions, Wagner’s militia retreated as quickly as they stormed Moscow. Was Wagner’s move related to internal tensions in Russia or was it the result of a behind-the-scenes agreement?
According to Pak Sahafat News Agency, International Group: The rebellion of the Wagner group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin did not last a day and the commander of this group backed down from his positions after the mediation of Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus. Although the western governments have interpreted the developments in Russia as the manifestation of a gap in Putin’s power, some experts do not reject the hypothesis that these events are a show.
With a close look at this incident and the surrounding news, 6 possible scenarios seem to be analyzed separately;
The first scenario; Putin’s plan to clean up and recognize the fifth column
Wagner’s attack on Moscow is reminiscent of the failed July 1395 coup in Turkey, which was carried out with the aim of overthrowing the government of the President of this country, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Although that coup did not appear to be fake, the result was that the opposing military was identified and eliminated. Therefore, about 300,000 people were arrested in connection with it, and more than 130,000 people were fired from their jobs on charges of being related to the coup.
In Russia, the immediate advance of the Wagner group and taking control of the Russian city of Rostov, as well as reaching the vicinity of Moscow without any resistance and bombardment by the Russian army, showed that the attack was fake. Moreover, the effective mediation of Belarus and the departure of Prigozhin to this country, which all took less than 24 hours, strengthen the hypothesis that the attack was planned. In particular, the Russian media have announced the end of the criminal investigation into the armed rebellion of the Wagner group by the “Russian Federal Security Service” (FSB).
After these incidents, while calling the actions of the Wagners “betrayal of the country”, he spoke about the disarmament of this group and gave them the right to choose between three cases: “joining the army”, “returning to the family” and “departing to Belarus”.
The second scenario; Wagner settlement plan in Eastern Europe (Belarus)
For years, Wagner’s militia group has been known as Moscow’s foreign armed arm, especially in Syria and several African countries, and it is not far-fetched that a new mission has been defined for them after a year and a half of the Ukraine crisis. It is a mission in Eastern Europe that NATO has targeted Eastern European countries after the accession of Sweden and Finland based on Article 10 of the treaty’s constitution.
Oge Mire, a journalist and analyst, considers the recent events in Russia to be a pre-planned game between Putin, Prigozhin and Lukashenko in order to find an excuse for the deployment of Russian forces in Belarus and near the borders of Lithuania, Poland and western Ukraine, and says: “First of all, with this action, Wagner’s forces are behind the Ukrainian border and can attack Kiev and Lviv much more powerfully, much more easily than when they were stationed in eastern Ukraine. From another point of view, Wagner’s presence in Belarus guarantees the safety of Russia’s nuclear facilities and weapons that Putin plans to deploy soon in Belarus near the border of Poland and Lithuania.”
The mediation of the President of Belarus Lukashenko, the quiet exile of Prigozhin to this country, as well as the existence of the option of “departure to Belarus” among the options offered by Putin to the members of the Wagner militia group, strengthen this scenario. In addition, the “Intel Republic” base has announced that a military camp is being built for the Wagner group in Belarus; A camp 200 km from the border with Ukraine, which has a capacity of 8,000 soldiers.
The third scenario; Putin’s trap for Ukraine
This scenario is related to the planning of military attack by Putin with the coordination of various organizations including Wagner. In this scenario, we have to go back a little, i.e. the “Ukraine spring counter-offensive”.
Ukraine’s spring counter-offensive started in mid-June, but according to Russian officials and Western media, this operation did not go as expected by Ukrainians. Volodymyr Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, who lost nearly 20% of his country’s territory during his reign and many of the country’s infrastructures were either destroyed or seriously damaged in the conflict with the Russian army, a few days ago without giving any details.
Inducing a rift in the Wagner camp, as well as between the commander of these militias and the Minister of Defense and Putin himself, and finally a fake attack on Moscow, could have made Ukraine determined to strike a blow; The same thing that Moscow had done in history against Napoleon and Hitler is to drag the enemy to the heart of vast Russia and defeat them.
The fourth scenario; the split in the body of power and Prigozhin’s attempt to remove the Minister of Defense
Unlike the previous scenarios that were all planned with different goals, this scenario indicates a serious difference in Russia’s power structure; the scenario that the media of Russia and other countries reflect.
Based on this scenario, Prigozhin is the leader of a rebel group that claims the Russian army targeted Wagner’s forces from behind. Therefore, he sought revenge and claimed that “tonight we will deal with the case of traitors and criminals in insulting Russia, who is the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and resolve the attack on Wagner.”
Opposite Prigozhin is Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defense minister who has held his position for more than a decade and is not only a political ally of President Vladimir Putin, but also one of his few friends in the Russian power circle. Shoigu and Putin have swum and hunted together in Siberian waters and played on the same ice hockey team, but now their decades-long friendship and political activism are facing their biggest test since Wagner’s armed rebellion.
On Friday, for the first time in a video clip published by his press service on Telegram, the commander of the Wagner group rejected Russia’s main justifications for military operations in Ukraine and claimed: Nothing out of the ordinary happened on February 24, the Russian Ministry of Defense is trying to deceive the public and the President (Putin) and tell us a story about how Ukraine and NATO have gone crazy.
Prigozhin, who has been publicly accusing Defense Minister Shoigu and Russian top general Valery Gerasimov of “incompetence in the Ukraine war” for months, has said that the Ukraine war was necessary for Shoigu to become a marshal, so that he could receive a second “hero” medal.
The fifth scenario; Prigozhin seeks to consolidate power until the dream of the presidency
One of the few analyzes that analyzed Prigogine’s revolt and Wagner’s group from this angle was presented by the Institute of War Studies, which believed: The obvious beginning of Prigozhin’s armed rebellion is the culmination of his campaign to maintain control over the military forces and the means of maintaining his position in Russia; He has done this rebellion as an attempt to survive.
“CNN” quoted an expert on Russian issues and claimed: Putin does not forgive traitors. Even if he says that Prigozhin is going to Belarus, he is still considered a traitor, and I think that Putin will never forgive him. He also claimed that we might see Prigogine “killed in Belarus”, but as long as he has supporters, regardless of where he is, he is considered a threat, and this worries Russia.
The sixth scenario; Wagner’s attack with the support of “CIA”, “Mossad” and “MI6”
One of the possible scenarios is that the United States and other NATO member countries are involved in this military rebellion, and this rebellion may have been the result of a planned plan in the dark rooms. From the very first day of the Russian army’s attack on the borders of Ukraine, the American and European media strongly talked about the possibility of a major military coup against the Russian president, considering the existence of a split in the country’s army and the opposition of senior officers to the war against Ukraine.
It is not unlikely that these media advertisements were actually a cover for the secret recruitment of the Wagner group and its commander. Prigozhin revealed Russian war secrets and the downing of a Russian helicopter, and made strange demands about the need to remove the defense minister and the army chief and the chief of the joint staff of the Russian army.
In this connection, Margarita Simonyan, the head of the Russian state TV channel “Rasha Today” announced: “Without a doubt, the Wagner group’s rebellion against the Kremlin was an act organized by the intelligence services of the United Kingdom, the United States, and possibly a “government” in West Asia. The head of “Rashatudi” TV channel means this “government” in West Asia, the Zionist regime and specifically the spy agency (Mossad).
Simonian’s comment about the Mossad’s role in the Wagner group’s rebellion is important because, according to media reports, he is one of the closest journalists to the Kremlin Palace and the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin.
In addition, what strengthens the possibility of a connection between Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigogine and the Mossad is the fact that Prigogine’s ancestors were Jewish.
Two weeks before Wagner’s attack, the Zionist TV channel “i24 News” reported that the flag of Wagner’s group was raised on the crane of a tower under construction in the heart of Tel Aviv. At that time, the authorities of the Zionist regime denied any connection with the raising of the flag of the Wagner Group in Tel Aviv and declared it to be the work of one of the workers of the tower construction company.
What strengthen the Mossad involvement scenario is the differences between Russia and the Zionist regime, which started from the beginning of the Ukraine war and deepened every day, and the Russian judicial action against the Jewish Agency and its closure was the Kremlin’s last shot at relations with Tel Aviv. Therefore, it seems natural that the Zionist regime sought revenge against Putin.
End of speech
In response to the question “What happened that Wagner took a day back?” It is not possible to confirm a scenario with certainty; this could have happened under the leadership of Putin and the coordination of other organizations with the aim of identifying and eliminating the fifth column, the deployment of Wagner in Eastern Europe or livestock for Ukraine in the continuation of the spring counterattack.
On the other hand, the scenarios that measure differences and tensions in Russia’s political-security structure also seem logical. The verbal dispute between Prigogine and Russian Defense Minister Shoigu has been going on since months ago when the Ukraine crisis entered the erosion phase. Therefore, it is likely that as the Ukrainian crisis erodes more and more, the differences between the officials will show themselves, even with Putin himself.
All in all, regardless of which scenario has happened in the real world, but from the point of view of the observers, this incident has sounded the alarm about the use of the private army and military contractors. Probably, Putin, understanding this issue, asked Wagner’s forces to join the army.