'Demoralising for Putin': Wagner's short-lived revolt 'weakened' Russia's strongman 'so publicly'
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Transcript
00:00 get some more analysis on this now. Rod Thornton is also live with us. He's an expert in the Russian
00:06 military at King's College London. Thank you very much indeed, sir, for joining us on the programme.
00:11 Can I just ask you first of all on what your read is this afternoon on how that march to
00:17 Moscow affected Vladimir Putin himself and how damaged do you think the president now is?
00:22 Well, first of all to say where was this march? I mean, was it just a figment of somebody's
00:28 imagination? There isn't any kind of film of this massive march, 5,000 or so troops or
00:34 Wagner troops on their way to Moscow. A few dribs and drabs of forces filmed on a road.
00:40 So, but we haven't got confirmation that this kind of march for justice as Prigozhin
00:45 called it actually was occurring. But it does weaken Putin. Putin to be in this position,
00:52 to be threatened in the way he has been by this upstart, his former chef Prigozhin,
00:58 is really embarrassing for Putin because Putin is like the old Tsars. He relies on the support of
01:04 the public to be in power. He needs to kind of show to the public that he is in charge in Moscow.
01:12 He's in charge of the centre and he can rule Russia on the people's behalf. To be weakened
01:18 like this so publicly and to be shown to his own people to be so weak and in such a kind of
01:24 precarious position is, has to be demoralising for Putin.
01:28 And I wonder what you make of those images that we've been playing today on France 24
01:33 that the Kremlin has released of the defence minister Shoigu. We know Prigozhin has called
01:41 for him to go. The fact that these images are being released, even though we don't know when
01:47 they're actually dated from, does that suggest to you he is likely to survive this?
01:51 That's a big question. I do not believe those pictures, like you see there,
01:57 you see Prigozhin in a helicopter. Are you going to be in a helicopter anywhere near the battlefront
02:02 when you're facing kind of ground to air missiles from your own side, from say the Wagner forces?
02:07 No, he's not. I don't believe that this is any time recent in this film. It's old stock footage
02:13 that of Prigozhin visiting the headquarters some time ago. And also from another point of view,
02:19 from the Kremlin's point of view, I can't see them organising a visit by the defence minister
02:23 in the few hours they had between the events of yesterday and what's happened.
02:30 This film, I cannot believe is true.
02:33 It is interesting though, isn't it, that we are getting footage of Shoigu, whether it's
02:39 recent or not, but we haven't heard or seen any footage of the army chief, Gerasimov.
02:45 What do you make of that?
02:46 Well, Gerasimov, as famously, keeps a very low profile anyway, so we shouldn't really expect
02:52 too much film of him. But for public consumption, it would have been good to show Gerasimov going
02:59 around publicly on his duties, which would have assuaged, kind of, an ameliorated some
03:05 sort of concern about where the hell he is. And also, where are the other guys? Where is Putin?
03:12 Where is Prigozhin? These people have kind of disappeared. And this is kind of makes it all
03:16 very interesting, shall we say, in terms of what's going to happen in the future. Which of these
03:22 dramatic personas are going to emerge victorious?
03:25 Indeed. And, you know, without leaning too far into speculation, I wonder what your thoughts
03:29 are now on the fate of the Wagner group itself, led by Prigozhin, because we know that the Russian
03:37 army had plans to try and absorb that force. Prigozhin, of course, very against that. Does
03:43 the events over the weekend mean that it's sort of being disbanded? How do we understand what role
03:47 they're now to play?
03:48 Well, this all depends on the kind of tension between the GRU, the Russian military intelligence,
03:54 which actually backed or created Wagner forces. So it was, again, Wagner did not appear out of
04:00 nowhere. It was supported by the GRU, the kind of military intelligence army, kind of elements
04:06 of the army. And the GRU has always been in competition, shall we say, with the FSB,
04:12 the internal security force, who want to arrest Prigozhin. So which way does the GRU swing? Is it
04:17 going to give up its support for Prigozhin and allow the FSB to have its way in terms of arresting
04:23 him? Or what is going to happen? It's kind of, it's internecine politics in Moscow, and we're
04:28 at a dark hour. And hardly anybody in the West could understand what is going on there
04:33 now or in the immediate future.
04:34 Rod Thornton, talking to us there from King's College, London. Thank you very much indeed,
04:39 sir, for your time and your analysis on the programme.