Consolidation is strong and bloggers are fast – Kommersant

The system is stable, the front has been defended, and society and the main political players have consolidated around the president. So, according to Kommersant’s sources, they believe in the presidential administration following the riot of Yevgeny Prigozhin. And on Friday, these theses were publicly expressed by the participants of the round table of the Expert Institute for Social Research (EISI) “Prigozhin’s rebellion: why it could not end in success.” As an example of consolidation, they cited speeches by governors, deputies, senators and bikers. They also confidently swept away all doubts about the effective work of the special services. It should be noted that, according to the FOM, in general, the ratings of the authorities are stable, although confidence in the president fell by three percentage points following the events of last week.

According to Kommersant’s information, the presidential administration believes that during the Wagner rebellion, the entire internal political infrastructure of our country worked perfectly and no changes or adjustments are required in it. “The system is not broken. Why change something? – an informed federal official explained in a conversation with Kommersant. “The main thing is the front, the rest is nonsense,” said another high-ranking source. In general, they came to the conclusion that work continues according to old plans, and society will soon forget the past events, said another Kommersant interlocutor close to the presidential administration.

In fact, this position was reported by EISI experts during the round table held on June 30 at the MIA “Russia Today”. “The military action of businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, of course, was doomed to failure, as Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin said about this. An armed rebellion would have been suppressed in any case. Prigozhin did not have active support either among the elite or among the citizens. On the contrary, we observed unity around the Russian authorities and personally President Vladimir Putin, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief,” Pavel Danilin, moderator of the discussion, said with an expression. He also praised the patriotic spirit of the Russians, the behavior of the main political players of modern Russia and law enforcement agencies.

“Obviously, our society instantly oriented itself and consolidated around the authorities,” political scientist Aleksey Martynov supported his colleague.

However, Mr. Danilin mentioned that there were those who, during the rebellion, took a wait-and-see attitude and gave the floor to someone who, according to him, did not sit on the sidelines – State Duma deputy Oleg Matveychev. “I didn’t sit out not only during the putsch, but a few months before it I warned about the jingoistic Maidan,” he said via video link. Only in the words of Mr. Matveychev sounded a fraction of criticism in relation to what happened. According to him, the danger of the patriotic protest he mentioned was not taken seriously: he was criticized and even called a “liberal”. However, according to the deputy, the situation was saved by the fact that Yevgeny Prigozhin made a “false start”, since Russia’s opponents expected that such speeches would happen closer to the presidential election.

“The front is worth it,” said Alexei Malinin, founder of the ANO Center for International Interaction and Cooperation, focusing on the fact that President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko took part in resolving the crisis. Thus, in his interpretation, not only Russia, but also the Union State passed the stress test.

“The Wagner forces during the mutiny did not represent anything special. One of the columns included two or three tanks, several infantry fighting vehicles, one air defense system – there was not enough heavy equipment. The rebels would definitely not have reached Moscow,” Maxim Grigoriev, a member of the Public Chamber of Russia, assured everyone.

A contradiction was outlined in the experts’ theses: if there was no threat, then what was prevented by the consolidation and effective actions of the special services that they mentioned. “There were three echelons of barriers around Moscow. If the commanders hadn’t obeyed, hadn’t deployed their columns, there would have been a massacre,” political scientist Marat Bashirov explained, explaining that civilians would have suffered as well. He also mentioned that Yevgeny Prigozhin is a “media character” and only an investigation will reveal the real initiators of the failed coup.

Kommersant asked the experts to clarify what exactly the social consolidation they mentioned manifested itself in. In response, they mentioned speeches by governors, as well as bikers, military chaplains, deputies, senators, mayors. “If we analyze the situation associated with certain internal political threats… What is happening? They are always waiting for a split of the elite. And which of the ministers, and which of the governors, of the leaders of the parties, did not take a consolidating position? Here we saw that there were no such positions,” added Vladimir Shapovalov, deputy director of the Institute of History and Politics of the Moscow State Pedagogical University. “Today, the vanguard of society is the blogosphere. And the blogosphere began to work from nine o’clock in the evening, ”Marat Bashirov also defended the consolidation.

However, as it turned out, not all spectators of the event agreed that the system worked without failures. For example, two media representatives asked questions about whether the Russian authorities were to blame for the rebellion. One of them clarified whether the general positive attitude towards the Wagner PMC does not indicate that the “penal battalion” was actually placed “on a pedestal”. The second wondered whether the failure of the special services, which had not prevented the performance in advance, was seen in what had happened. However, the experts replied that the first moment is decided by the same legislation on PMCs. Such companies should not operate in Russia. Although for work in countries such as Africa (where Russia cannot legally use military force), they are needed. In addition, all such structures must report to the president as the supreme commander in chief. On the second question, they noted that the special services knew about everything, but they were waiting for the moment to neutralize Yevgeny Prigozhin. According to Pavel Danilin, at the moment the Wagner representatives left Bakhmut, it was impossible to take extreme measures, as they could “irritate” the employees of this organization.

On Friday, the Public Opinion Foundation published the results of its regular poll on trust in the authorities. It was held on the last three days of last week. According to the survey, the rebellion of the PMC “Wagner” was in second place in the list of the most significant events of the past week, gaining 19% of the respondents (in the first place is a special military operation with a result of 30%). Most of the government’s ratings remained at the level of previous polls. However, confidence in Vladimir Putin fell by three percentage points, from 78% to 75%. The ratings of United Russia also suffered: they fell from 46% to 42%.

Andrey Vinokurov