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Political scientist Fyodor Krasheninnikov discusses how the Wagner PMC mutiny has impacted the future of post-Putin Russia..

Last October, a political scientist Fyodor Krasheninnikov говорил In an interview with the Telegram channel "NotMoscow Speaking," he said that a civil war in post-Putin Russia is unlikely because, due to demographic problems, there is no one left to fight.

The political scientist's opinion remained unchanged even after the Wagner PMC revolt on June 23. However, he saw other dangers for post-Putin Russia. One was the rise of banditry. Another was the people's habit of glorifying those who are anything but heroic.

Krasheninnikov does not share the enthusiasm about Prigozhin's rebellion and the prophecies about the imminent end of Putin's regime.

In his opinion, the expert community had been waiting for any hint of change for too long. Against this backdrop, the mercenary rebellion was enough to send analysts of all levels "off their rocker and into overdrive."

Fyodor Krasheninnikov is a Russian political scientist, publicist and public figure. Born July 16, 1976. A staunch regionalist, he advocates for decentralization and increased autonomy for Russia's regions. In 2008, he published a draft of the dystopia "After Russia", which was widely distributed among "network libraries". He was twice subjected to administrative arrest for disrespecting the authorities, after which he left Russia in 2020. In 2021, a criminal case was opened against Krasheninnikov for slandering World War II veteran Ignat Artemenko. In September 2022, the Ministry of Justice added him to the list of individuals deemed foreign agents.

How do you assess the mutiny of the Wagner PMC units and their march on Moscow? What did it entail, from your perspective?

- I think it was just the desire of an eccentric Evgenia Prigozhina to draw attention to the long-running dispute he has had with the Ministry of Defense, Sergey Shoigu и Valery Gerasimov.

Some saw this as a rebellion against Putin, but I don't understand where they got that from. Prigozhin made no accusations against the Russian president or the current regime, although he did criticize the official war narrative. He spoke exclusively against the military commanders' poor handling of the war and promised to return to the front and continue fighting Ukrainian troops immediately after he restored order.

I also don't understand the basis for the stories about the PMC units' victory marches. Some units did indeed advance beyond Rostov, but where they actually went is unclear.

The fact that they offered no resistance and allegedly surrendered is debatable. For example, I heard of an order that simply forbade resistance, because no police or National Guard could physically resist tanks and guns. The operation against the mercenaries was being prepared by troops who were most likely waiting for them somewhere.

Therefore, the story of how the heroic Prigozhin rose up against Putin, and the entire nation supported him, is a complete self-delusion of émigrés, which people themselves invented.

From the very beginning, I was horrified that the doomed performance of a gang of criminals led by a man who could not be branded could inspire or inspire anyone.

And even more so, I didn’t understand how one could see the end of Putin’s regime in all of this.

ПWhy then is this opinion being circulated? Aboutthat Prigozhin is a handsome guy, and over Putinthat's all are they laughing?

"If you're talking about opinions that exist within the opposition-exile information bubble, there could be some psychological effect behind them. Because when you've been psyching yourself up for a year and a half, waiting for the regime to collapse, and then suddenly something truly extraordinary happens (and a mercenary uprising is a rare occurrence in the modern world), the exaltation and overexcitement become very pronounced."

People were so eager for any facts or even hints that everything would end soon that after the first reports of the Wagner detachments' advance, their heads literally went crazy and they started fantasizing.

Plus, let's not forget that we live in the era of ubiquitous streaming. A huge number of media outlets and people are on the airwaves almost 24/7, and that time needs to be filled with something. The public is overwrought and spoiled, and they need to be constantly surprised.

The story of the mercenary rebellion fell on fertile ground, just waiting for something like this to happen. Everyone jumped on the news, and the logic of hype completely overwhelmed common sense. The information space began to flood with comments from experts jumping to conclusions before events had even unfolded.

When I read this, I had the feeling that the action was taking place in some parallel universe, where some brave and literally saintly division commander refused to go to the front and turned his troops towards Moscow to overthrow the damned Putin regime.

What surprised you most about this information flow?

"People who rushed to forgive Prigozhin for all his past crimes. They forgot that he was, in fact, a war criminal who killed journalists in Central Africa, harassed the opposition, and did other terrible things."

Everyone started talking about him as some kind of freedom fighter. And, by the way, there are still people who, even after everything ended in nothing, continue to say that Prigozhin is still a force to be reckoned with, while Putin's regime is about to collapse, having suffered a terrible blow.

How can you even attribute this to a guard dog raised by Putin, who suddenly went berserk and tried to bite his master's friends? For which, in fact, he was simply beaten with a stick and, whining pitifully, ran off to the neighboring property.

We need to reflect now not only on the causes and consequences of Prigozhin's rebellion, but also on how we ourselves are reacting to information. We need to draw some conclusions for the future and take a more measured approach to what's happening.

Because even if someone rebels against Putin, it doesn't always mean he wants to do the best. One could hope that in the process of suppressing the rebellion, all sides in the conflict would inflict as much damage on each other as possible, or even provoke a collapse on the front. But I certainly wouldn't want to wish him victory.

Why do you think Prigozhin's rebellion was doomed in advance failure?

"First of all, it was perfectly clear he didn't have the 25 people he claimed. Five thousand at best. And those aren't the kind of forces capable of seizing power in Russia. The most they could do was start a small bloody brawl somewhere on the outskirts of Moscow. And lose it."

Secondly, Prigozhin is deeply repulsive to army and intelligence officers. To any career officer, he's a convicted former restaurateur from St. Petersburg who leads a gang of released criminals. This image is a denial of everything officers are taught their entire lives. It's a kind of anti-army.

Therefore, the idea that someone could join him seems strange to me.

And why would the police or special services join a gang of criminals who were released from prison for only one purpose: to die at the front instead of mobilized and career soldiers?

Was it a surprise to the Kremlin that Prigozhin went on a mutiny?

"It definitely came as a surprise to me. Even though in recent months I've been calling Prigozhin a lost cause, about to be removed from the scene."

I was only wrong in predicting that he would be taken off stage quietly.

And they really did start to sideline him, cut funding, and pulled troops from the front. But instead of quietly negotiating some terms and leaving, he kicked up a fuss and is still strutting his stuff. Maybe he's high on some illegal substances or just having an adrenaline rush... But I don't think he's realized yet that he's already lost.

I completely fail to understand how he even intended to fight a state on which he was completely dependent. His entire infamous private company was created with state permission, armed, and trained at Russian military bases. The money to finance all this riffraff also came from the budget.

I think at some point he began to realize that the window of opportunity, including for financing, was closing, and he simply misjudged the situation.

It all seems to me like some kind of State Emergency Committee, when people rebelled and, according to one version, thought Gorbachev would support them. But he didn't, and so everything fell apart.
Perhaps Prigozhin was being manipulated by some ill-wishers posing as allies. They told him, "Speak up, Putin will listen, Putin will support you, Shoigu will fire you, and he'll praise you. Come on, show me!"
And he may have been mistaken, deciding on a classic rebellion based on the principle of "let's go to the tsar and tell him the boyars are bad." It turned out that the tsar was quite pleased with his boyars and disliked rebellions. Ultimately, all of Prigozhin's hopes were dashed, and he promptly withdrew.

If Prigozhin lost this battle, what status does Putin have? Did he win or lose as well?

“He made a terribly stupid mistake last year when he agreed to the very idea of ​​releasing criminals from prison, giving them weapons and subordinating them to such an eccentric adventurer as Prigozhin.

The fact that the president allowed this situation to happen already speaks to his problems with perceiving reality.

But many people told him that this is exactly how it could happen. And they still say so now, by the way.

If you remember, we have another strange military structure called Kadyrov's troops. I hope that after this story, Putin will want to do something about it to avoid future problems.

But for a developed country, such a situation is fundamentally unacceptable. It's simply mind-boggling. A country that claims to be a global power is waging war on the entire world... And in its rear, it's not some captured Ukrainians or oppositionists who are rebelling, but criminal mercenaries led by a former restaurateur with a criminal record. They seize an entire city and then disappear somewhere... This is the level of news from some Third World country.

And against this backdrop, Putin, of course, looks like an idiot. Including in the eyes of some of his electorate, which includes both government officials and security forces.

I wouldn't say he's lost and that it's the end for him. I'm afraid that after this rebellion, he'll begin tightening the screws even more, playing fast and loose, and squashing any hint of dissent against him or his policies.

What adjustments did Prigozhin's rebellion make to the image of the future you were contemplating last fall?

"He showed that one of the worst-case scenarios for our country isn't civil war. There's still no strength, no drive, no potential, no leaders for it. And—most importantly—no reason for it."

The worst-case scenario is criminal dominance. There will be no "whites" and "reds." Territories will be occupied by gangs with no political agenda. They won't need an army to subjugate the civilian population—a Makarov pistol will suffice.

This is what I'm afraid of now: that Putin will lead Russia to a situation where the poor, who won't have the means to hire security, hide, or escape from all this, will suffer most from rampant crime and chaos. In part, this could also be called a civil war. But in my opinion, it's called rampant banditry.

В This weekend is a holiday for Russia. was a chance for democratization?

- Absolutely not.

Firstly, it was not an uprising for democracy. And secondly, it was doomed to fail.

I initially couldn't understand how a doomed uprising of criminals and mercenaries against Shoigu, appealing to Putin, could lead to democratization. And those who were still hoping for it greatly surprised me.