Are moves already underway to OVERTHROW Putin? Russian leader’s former supporters say he faces growing threat from Wagner mercenary army and border-region rebellions
- Wagner army could be used to overthrow Putin, despot’s former supporter said
Vladimir Putin is facing a growing threat of a coup from the fearsome Wagner mercenary army and anti-Kremlin rebellions on the border regions of Russia, the despot’s former supporters have said.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is acting with unidentified figures within Putin’s circle in a bid to oust the dictator, war analyst Igor Strelkov, ex-defence minister of Donetsk People’s Republic, claimed.
Strelkov said that now that the Wagner army is pulling out of the war zone around the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, the mercenaries could be used as military muscle to oust Putin.
Meanwhile, former Putin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov forecast a revolution starting not in Moscow but on the edge of Putin’s sprawling empire in regions bordering Ukraine that are falling to anti-Kremlin groups.
And today it emerged that several frontier settlements in Russia’s Belgorod border region were being shelled simultaneously by Ukrainian forces, the local governor said.
Vladimir Putin is facing a growing threat of a coup from the fearsome Wagner mercenary army (pictured) and anti-Kremlin rebellions on the border regions of Russia, the despot’s former supporters have said
Former Putin speechwriter Gallyamov forecast a revolution starting on the edge of Putin’s sprawling empire in regions bordering Ukraine. He highlighted recent incursions from Ukraine into Belgorod region by anti-Putin Russian partisans (pictured)
In a statement published on the Telegram messaging app, Vyacheslav Gladkov said two industrial facilities in the town of Shebekino had been shelled and that four employees had been wounded.
Strelkov said the ‘smuta’ – pre-revolutionary turmoil – has already started.
He claimed Prigozhin is acting with unidentified figures inside Putin’s power structures and one serious blow to Russia’s war effort by Ukraine could trigger huge changes.
‘No later than late summer the internal political situation in the country might change beyond recognition,’ Strelkov, who has 800,000 Telegram followers including many mid-ranking Russian soldiers, said.
‘Prigozhin has declared war on part of the military and state elite,’ he said. ‘Naturally he is not alone. If he was just by himself, he would have been eliminated,’ Strelov said, pointing to how there are thousands of Wagner mercenaries.
‘Naturally he has a very strong roof [close to Putin’s circle],’ said Strelkov, an ex-FSB colonel who was key to Russia grabbing Crimea and part of the Donbas in 2014.
Strelkov continued: ‘He is a member of the ruling mafia, of one of its groupings. And now we are observing how one of the groupings is breaking the current situation.
‘We see the declaration of a coup attempt…. ‘I don’t know what will happen next. Wagner is rushing to move its men back to bases. And its bases are scattered all around European Russia.
‘This allows me to conclude that [pre-revolutionary] social turmoil has started [against Putin].’
Former Putin speechwriter Gallyamov forecast a revolution starting on the edge of Putin’s sprawling empire in regions bordering Ukraine.
He highlighted recent incursions from Ukraine into Belgorod region by anti-Putin Russian partisans.
‘The recent events in the Belgorod region – primarily the inefficiency demonstrated by the domestic security forces – made me think that now it is impossible to exclude the transfer of part of the Russian border territories under the control of the Russian Volunteer Corps [RDK], which is fighting on the side of Ukraine,’ he said.
Strelkov (pictured) said that now that the Wagner army is pulling out of the war zone around the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, the mercenaries could be used as military muscle to oust Putin
And former Putin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov forecast a revolution starting not in Moscow but on the edge of Putin’s (pictured) sprawling empire in regions bordering Ukraine that are falling to anti-Kremlin groups
An anti-Kremlin volunteer fighter is pictured alongside a captured Russian armoured personnel carrier
‘The mood in Belgorod, Voronezh, Bryansk and other regions located along the border is now most likely much more oppositional than in the country as a whole.
‘The war hit them much harder than the capital, and such an unequal distribution of hardships creates a serious negative potential.
Who are the anti-Kremlin rebel groups responsible for attacks in Belgorod?
RUSSIAN VOLUNTEER CORPS
The Russian Volunteer Corps was founded by a far-right Russian national last August and comprises Russians who have been fighting in and for Ukraine against their own country.
The group has also been active over the border in Russian territory, and claimed responsibility for a raid there in March as well as the incursion into Belgorod.
The Ukrainian military intelligence agency says the RVC is an independent underground group inside Russia that also has a unit in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion. The Foreign Legion says it has nothing to do with the RVC.
A video posted by the RVC on Monday showed two men claiming to have captured a Russian armoured personnel carrier.
One of the men was identified as Ilya Bogdanov, a Russian national who received Ukrainian citizenship in 2015 after fighting for Kyiv against Russian-backed forces in Ukraine’s east.
FREEDOM OF RUSSIA LEGION
The Freedom of Russia Legion says it was formed in spring 2022 ‘out of the wish of Russians to fight in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine against Putin’s armed gang’.
It says it cooperates with the Ukrainian armed forces and operates under Ukrainian command. It has claimed responsibility for the attack in Belgorod and says it has been fighting in eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military intelligence agency’s spokesperson said on Monday that the attacks in Belgorod only involved Russian citizens and that they were creating a ‘security zone’ to protect Ukrainian civilians.
He did not confirm or deny that the forces operating there are a Ukrainian unit.
Mark Galeotti, author of several books on the Russian military, said the two groups comprised anti-Kremlin Russians ranging from liberals and anarchists to neo-Nazis.
Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak repeated Kyiv’s position that it had nothing to do with the operation.
‘I think that the Belgorod region residents now have a feeling that Moscow has incited them into an adventure and left them to the mercy of fate.
‘Such interpretations destroy loyalty literally completely.’
Last week, experts claimed the daring attacks of native Russian anti-Kremlin fighters on the western Russian region of Belgorod could ‘rattle’ Moscow and disrupt Russian troops ahead of a much-anticipated Ukrainian counterattack.
The Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) and Freedom of Russia Legion, armed with armoured vehicles, small arms and a pair of tanks, surged over the border from Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and took a string of urban settlements to occupy roughly 3-5 miles of Russian soil.
They later launched a pair of drone attacks on FSB and Interior Ministry buildings in Belgorod city overnight into Tuesday, prompting regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov to order the evacuation of nine Russian towns and the Kremlin to admit ‘serious cause for concern’.
Gallyamov – a Putin loyalist-turned-foe, said: ‘I think that local residents will not show any particular resistance to the advancing RDK units.
‘The logic of their reflections will be something like this: ‘The new authorities are also Russians, only they are against Putin and for democracy.
‘And what about Putin? Why should I now take a machine gun in my hands because of him? [He can] go to hell.
‘It’s his own fault, he invented this stupid war….we are sick with [his] corruption’.’
An area bordering Ukraine could be labelled a ‘new – free from Putin – Russia’, he said.
‘After the creation of authorities there, it will be possible to gradually move inland, capturing more and more new settlements.’
He predicted: ‘I am still far from suggesting that the RDK will storm Moscow, but it is obvious that [this] scenario…will lead to a large-scale political crisis in Russia.
‘The situation may develop in such a way that it will not even be necessary to take the Kremlin by storm.
‘A completely demoralised Putin himself will hand over power to a successor, and the regime will soon thereafter [be forgotten].
‘I am not going to declare this scenario mainstream, but I will not completely dismiss it now either.’
Shina and Cuba both had revolutions starting on the edge, not in the centre, he said.
Strelkov – real name Igor Girkin – is a long campaigner for full mobilisation and martial law.
He says he was blocked from taking an active part in the war but has not been arrested despite regular criticisms of Putin and his commanders.
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