“It makes the idea of ​​a sacred union fly behind the president”, analyzes a specialist

“Wagner’s rebellion shatters the myth of the unity of the whole of Russia behind its president”, said Françoise Daucé, director of the Center for Russian, Caucasian and Central European Studies (CERCEC). The forces of the paramilitary group Wagner began to leave their positions in Russia on Sunday June 25, after the volte-face of their leader Yevgeny Prigojine, who had challenged Vladimir Putin. Françoise Daucé considers that this rebellion “has stolen the idea of ​​a sacred union behind the president by bringing to light the divisions within the power itself”.

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The director of studies at EHESS sees in this “mutiny an attempt to influence power in Moscow”. “It’s a conflict within the political and military elite”, says Françoise Daucé. She also recalls that in Russia, “power relations are currently based on interpersonal ties”. “Since coming to power, Vladimir Putin has chosen to appoint to the Ministry of Defense relatives chosen for their loyalty, but who were not generals of the army”, underlines this specialist of Russia. However, for Françoise Daucé, “This personal loyalty is being called into question and is giving rise to increasingly strong tensions in the army”. “We have the feeling that Vladimir Putin played with military fire, that the weapon seemed to turn against him”she adds.

An abortive rebellion, but at what cost

Faced with this “militarist and nationalist one-upmanship”Françoise Daucé observes that “the political and liberal opposition forces are prevented from acting in the country, and are for a part in exile”. “We do not know very well what are the forces inside the country which could come to counterbalance this extremely worrying drift”she judges.

Françoise Daucé also returns to the volte-face on Saturday by Evguéni Prigojine, which was made “at the cost of negotiations whose content is unknown”. Whether “officially all lawsuits against [le chef de Wagner] have been suspended, for the director of CERCEC, “decision-making being extremely opaque, we do not know what will happen behind”. “It’s a facade outcome in the immediate future, to calm the situation, but we can think that we will not stop there because there was a form of humiliation of Vladimir Putin and the high command. of the Army”, notes Françoise Daucé. She does not really imagine that are “reintegrated former mutineers into the regular ranks of the Russian army”.