Major Russian newspapers have expressed rare direct criticism of the authorities after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s abandoned coup, with one Moscow title saying Russia had “showed its vulnerability – to the whole world and to itself”, writes The Telegraph.
Newspapers questioned the Kremlin and defence ministry’s response to the Wagner chief staging an armed rebellion over the weekend, when the private military company occupied two cities in the south of Russia and advanced towards Moscow before Prigozhin struck a deal with Vladimir Putin.
Moskovsky Komsomolets, a daily newspaper based in the Russian capital, said the failed coup would have “profound political consequences”.
It added that that “the highest authority in the country forgot about the fundamental incompatibility of the letters P and M, the concepts of ‘private’ and ‘military’.
It said: “A monopoly is almost always bad. But there is one good, even necessary monopoly – the monopoly of the state on legalised force. If there is no such monopoly then, as we have all just seen, the very existence of the state is under threat.”
Mikhail Rostovsky, a Moskovsky Komsomolets journalist, wrote: “Russia ran to the very edge of the abyss at top speed, and with the same speed stepped away from it.”
He referred to the book Ten Days that Shook the World, written by John Reed, an American journalist, about the revolution in October 1917, and said: “In this case the world – or at least Russia – was shaken by a little over a day.”
There were also questions about how Prigozhin could verbally attack Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of general staff, “with impunity” in the months leading up to the mutiny.
“There were no clear answers. This created an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty and trampled the reputation of power into the mud,” he wrote.
Of the news that Prigozhin is to relocate to Belarus as part of the deal brokered by Alexander Lukashenko, that nation’s leader, the paper said: “Yevgeny Prigozhin will go to Belarus, but the problems created by him (let’s be fair: not only by him) will remain.”
“Russia showed its vulnerability – to the whole world and to itself.”
Elsewhere, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, a Russian daily, said: “Neither the Kremlin nor the ministry of defence has provided a clear answer to the question of how 25,000 fighters and more than 1500 pieces of equipment from Wagner … could advance in columns unhindered from field camps near Luhansk, occupy the headquarters of the Southern military district and within a day be 200km from Moscow.”
In another article, the paper said: “The legal case against Prigozhin allegedly disappeared into the depths of the law enforcement system, while the legal system once again showed flexibility up to its complete absence.”
State news agencies later on Monday reported that there was still a case open against the Wagner chief.
However, other major outlets remained staunchly behind the Kremlin in their response to the weekend’s news.
Komsomolskaya Pravda’s Alexander Gushin wrote on Sunday that “after [Saturday], confidence that our country has exactly the type of leader that is needed has only strengthened. Thank God Putin is there.”
Viktoria Nikiforova, writing for state news agency RIA Novosti, criticised the Western media’s reaction to the mutiny, saying: “It is foolish to think that after the neutralisation of Prigozhin the West will abandon their attempts to rock our boat.
“After the failure of the sanctions and the military failures of the Ukrainian armed forces, this is their only chance of success. They simply are unable to not use it.
“The only thing that inspires hope is what the Wagner performance showed well – our people do not need a civil war in any form. Russians categorically do not want to kill each other for the joy of Washington and London.”
