From the editor
For a short time last weekend it appeared that Russia was descending into civil war and Ukraine might catch a break. As Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner contractors took over the streets of Rostov-on-Don and regional governors frantically dug holes in the roads to try to stop his convoy of military vehicles from making it to Moscow, Vladimir Putin appeared only for a five-minute recorded statement that was broadcast repeatedly on state TV, to call the mutiny a “stab in the back” and warn against a repeat of the bloodbath that followed Russia’s withdrawal from World War I and its two revolutions.
Wagner contractors briefly controlled the street of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday
Prigozhin had announced his intentions in an angry voice message last Friday night, saying, “This is no military coup. This is a march for justice. Our actions do not interfere with the army in any way.” He claimed that the Defence Ministry had attacked a Wagner camp with missiles and helicopters, killing many of his men. But it later emerged that Prigozhin had been planning the mutiny for some time and may have been working with the now likely arrested Gen. Sergei Surovikin, who was replaced in January by Valery Gerasimov as commander of Russian forces in Ukraine. Ironically Surovikin was jailed for seven months in 1991 for sending his men to counter anti-coup protesters in Moscow, killing three of them. Boris Yeltsin dropped the charges against him and he was promoted. Gerasimov has not been seen since the Wagner mutiny, while Prigozhin’s sworn enemy Sergei Shoigu attended a meeting with Putin and a ceremony to thank the military on Tuesday.
The mutiny ended abruptly on Saturday evening after Alexander Lukashenko announced his talks with Prigozhin had been successful and the Wagner leader would stop his march and relocate to Belarus. Putin was silent until Monday evening, when his spokesman Dmitri Peskov was reported as saying he would make a series of announcements that would determine the fate of Russia. At 10:10 pm Moscow time Putin appeared in another brief recording to say traitors had to be punished but Wagner contractors were free to go to Belarus. He added nothing momentous and Peskov later claimed his words reported on state TV were fake news. By Thursday Putin was cheerfully greeting an adoring crowd in a visit to Dagestan.
At the Kremlin ceremony Putin held a minute’s silence for the 13 Russian airmen who were killed by Wagner during the mutiny, when they shot down helicopters and military planes that they thought were going to attack their convoy. Something also struck an oil storage facility in Voronezh, causing a large fire, and a truck driver and passenger were killed on a bridge in Voronezh Oblast when Russian air and space forces were targeting Wagner. Alexei Navalny released a comment about the irony of hearing that Prigozhin would go free while he himself is on trial in prison for “attempting to overthrow the state by force”. The concessions Putin has had to make to Wagner and his demeanour and behaviour throughout the crisis show that he was very much on the rocks, and perhaps still is.
Everyone has an opinion about what all this means for Russia, but what we know for certain is that Putin is still determined to slaughter civilians in Ukraine, as he did in Kramatorsk on Wednesday when Russian missiles struck a packed pizza restaurant, killing 12 people and injuring 65 more. After all, Prigozhin’s main grievance was that the Defence Ministry was conducting the war poorly. Rostov residents came out onto the streets to photograph themselves with Wagner contractors and give them food. If Putin can achieve something that Russians see as a success in Ukraine he will be praised. If he retreats he is certainly doomed. Any Western politicians who may have started wondering if Putin is a better option than civil war in Russia should look at Kramatorsk and remember that “stability” in Russia means endless death in Ukraine.
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Three sentenced for “spreading fakes about the army”
A court in Kaliningrad has sentenced 64-year-old activist Igor Baryshnikov to 7 ½ years in prison for “spreading fakes about the Russian army”. His 96-year-old mother, a Holocaust survivor, who has no one else to look after her, will be taken into the “care” of the state. Baryshnikov was accused of posting about Russian attacks on civilians in Ukraine last year. He had also regularly picketed in support of Navalny and against the government, for which he was jailed and fined.
Meanwhile a military court in Moscow sentenced Ruslan Ushakov, author of the Telegram channel Nastoyashcheye Prestupleniye (Real Crime), to eight years in prison for spreading fakes about the Russian army, rehabilitating Nazism, justifying terrorism and inciting hatred or enmity. Ushakov was prosecuted for his posts about the war in Ukraine and calls for violence against Putin. Ushakov said he was tortured after his arrest in December last year. Another Moscow court sentenced media manager Ilya Krasilshchik to eight years in prison for spreading fakes for a post about the Bucha massacre.
Physicist gets long sentence for treason
A court in Moscow has sentenced 71-year-old physicist Valery Golubkin to 12 years in prison for treason, for allegedly sharing information with a project in the Netherlands, although he had no access to state secrets. Golubkin is the latest of many Russian scientists, who are often elderly, to be convicted of treason for communicating with foreign colleagues. Golubkin is a professor at a Moscow aerodynamics institute and a world expert on hypersonic technology. His supervisor Anatoly Gubanov was arrested for treason in December 2020.
Ukrainian serviceman sentenced in occupied Donbas
A court in the “Luhansk People’s Republic” has sentenced Ukrainian serviceman Yevhen Kozlov to 15 years in prison for allegedly firing a flamethrower at a minibus with civilians on it in April last year. The Russian occupiers of the region accused Kozlov of following an illegal order to kill civilians and having personal hostility towards the people of the city of Rubizhne. Five people were on the minibus at the time and one woman were injured, the court claimed. Russian media published a video in which Kozlov confessed his guilt to a man in camouflage and a flak jacket.
Nine killed in Russian airstrike on market in Idlib
Russia has killed nine people and injured 30 in an airstrike on a vegetable market in Syria’s Idlib province – the deadliest Russian attack in the country this year. Another two people were killed in an air strike on the city of Idlib. The Syrian Defence Ministry said its troops had cooperated with the Russian air force to eliminate “dozens of terrorists”. Last month Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad was welcomed back to the Arab League at a summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after a 12-year expulsion because of his massacres during the civil war.