'Putin definitely weaker': Wagner faced no resistance advancing to Moscow, seizing key military base
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00:00 As the war continues in Ukraine across its northern border, the man responsible for a
00:03 significant chunk of the bloodshed has begun his exile in Belarus.
00:08 The leader of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, retreated to the territory
00:12 after his failed mutiny against Moscow's top brass.
00:16 The funding of the Wagner group's finances are now under the microscope as the Kremlin
00:20 looks into potential misdealings and the US slaps sanctions on actors linked to the armed
00:26 group.
00:27 We cross live now to London where we can speak to Katherine Belton, MBE and investigative
00:31 journalist at the Washington Post and author of the book, Putin's People, How the KGB Took
00:36 Back Russia and Then Took on the West.
00:39 She joins me now.
00:40 Ms. Belton, thank you so much for your time this evening here on France 24.
00:43 You've spent most of your career reporting on Russia from within its borders and abroad.
00:48 How significant for you was this weekend's failed mutiny by Prigozhin?
00:52 Yeah, it was incredible.
00:54 It was the most significant blow ever dealt to Vladimir Putin.
00:59 You saw really many members of the elite.
01:01 They were in shock.
01:02 I mean, they couldn't believe that someone could dare to take Putin on like that.
01:08 And really, his image is very damaged from it.
01:10 One of them told me now it looks like he's no one.
01:14 He wasn't capable of doing anything.
01:17 Joe Biden was just asked by France 24's Washington correspondents whether he thought Putin was
01:22 weaker after the weekend.
01:23 He replied, "I know he is."
01:25 Do you think that's true?
01:26 And more importantly, do you think Putin thinks that's true?
01:31 I think Putin is definitely weaker from this weekend.
01:35 And certainly those around him, those in the Moscow elite certainly believe it because
01:39 I mean, no one has dared to take him on like this.
01:42 And for an armed group to be able to march hundreds of miles up north to Moscow without
01:49 being stopped, without facing any resistance, the fact that they were able to take control
01:54 of the main military command base for the war in Ukraine, in Rostov, again, without
01:59 facing any resistance, certainly raises a lot of alarm bells that there's something
02:03 very wrong in the state of Vladimir Putin.
02:07 I think Putin has to realize this himself, but you've seen him going on a huge damage
02:13 control drive now since the weekend.
02:15 During the weekend, he disappeared.
02:18 He was nowhere.
02:19 There were lots of rumors and there were reports that his private jet had taken off for the
02:26 north of Russia to his residence there.
02:30 But since late Monday, he's been on damage control.
02:33 He's been holding all these meetings with the military, trying to congratulate everyone
02:37 for standing up against the mutiny.
02:40 But in reality, he blinked.
02:43 He made a deal with Prigozhin before the real moment of truth could happen, before he could
02:50 reach Moscow.
02:51 The Wagner group, of course, has been a monster of Putin's own creation.
02:55 Do you think it shows poor foresight on Putin's part to see that it would eventually try to
03:00 bite the hand that was feeding it?
03:02 Yes.
03:03 I mean, some of the kind of the members of the Russian elite were warning about the rise
03:09 of these private mercenary groups a year ago, because the Wagner group took on an ever more
03:15 prominent role the minute Putin launched his invasion in Ukraine.
03:20 Wagner group was given tons of funding, more and more weapons, as Putin basically relied
03:28 on it to do the brunt of the fighting in Ukraine, to ease the pressure on conscripts from the
03:35 regular population.
03:37 The Wagner group was allowed to basically free prisoners.
03:41 They freed the prisoner populations as long as they were allowed to go and die in Ukraine.
03:47 And all these people were given weapons.
03:49 And people, there was a newspaper editor, Konstantin Remchukov, who warned a year ago
03:53 that this had a great, great risk of it all kind of flaring out of control, that all these
04:00 weapons were being given out kind of left, right and center, and none of it was under
04:04 control of the state.
04:05 And at some point, it was going to come back and bite Vladimir Putin and raise a very real
04:11 risk of civil war.
04:12 Vladimir Putin's not someone who's known to forgive and forget.
04:16 You're in the UK.
04:17 You've also obviously been a slew of poisonings of Kremlin critics in that country.
04:22 I'm thinking of Alexander Litvinenko, but also the Salisbury poisoning of the Scherpals
04:25 as well.
04:26 Do you really think that Putin is ready to let Prygozhin continue with his activities?
04:32 Well, I mean, it seems that he has agreed to let him go.
04:38 He's dropped the mutiny charges.
04:40 But Prygozhin is free to continue to operate the Wagner Group for now out of Belarus.
04:48 So it must mean that perhaps Prygozhin has some compromising information or something
04:54 else that he knows about Putin, some kind of guarantee he's got tucked away somewhere
04:59 in case something happens to him.
05:01 It's astonishing to me that nothing has happened to him already.
05:06 The Wagner Group, though, it's become quite indispensable for the Kremlin in recent years,
05:09 hasn't it?
05:10 Especially now since Western sanctions have restarted to take effect.
05:13 The Wagner Group has earned untold millions for the Kremlin through mining activities
05:17 and more in Africa.
05:19 How do you think those developments in Ukraine are likely to affect Wagner's operations elsewhere?
05:25 Well, obviously, this is a big blow for the Wagner Group, because although they do control
05:31 significant mining assets now in Africa, they still rely and have relied on the Kremlin
05:38 and Kremlin allies to fund their operations.
05:41 So they're going to see that funding really dry up now.
05:45 And there will be attempts to kind of pick members of the Wagner Group off.
05:50 And of course, they're mercenaries, so, you know, they work for money.
05:53 So they'll go to whoever pays the most.
05:56 So this will see a big shakeup in Africa.
06:01 Putin recently just said that he didn't doubt the support of the Russian people during the
06:05 mutiny.
06:08 How does he play it out from here?
06:10 What do you think his future looks like?
06:12 Well, I think his image has been really dealt a very significant blow.
06:19 You know, he was always seen by the elite as the guarantor of stability.
06:23 He already undermined that when he launched the invasion in Ukraine.
06:27 But now it seems he can't control his own country when this armed group can basically
06:33 rage across Russia and nearly reach Moscow without even being stopped.
06:40 It seems like he's really got a problem, because when people like this don't face resistance,
06:46 either the army didn't want to confront them or perhaps there were some members of the
06:51 security services who were supporting the Wagner group.
06:56 It's very unclear why it was they were able to get so far.
07:01 So I think Putin has got to ask very serious questions now about the degree of loyalty
07:06 to him within his own inner circle.
07:10 I think that's, it's a big problem because the war has stirred all these divisions within
07:16 the Russian elite.
07:17 Many people are very unhappy about the way it's going.
07:20 There's a wing which was led by Prigogine, which really wanted Putin to take much tougher
07:26 action in Ukraine.
07:28 And yet there's another wing who doesn't want Putin to be waging this war at all and sees
07:33 it as having dealt huge damage to the country's standing and to its economic status and its
07:39 integration with the rest of the world.
07:41 And they see it as a path to nowhere and they just want it to stop.
07:45 And Putin has been squeezed between these two camps now for more than a year and his
07:51 room for maneuver is diminishing all the time.
07:56 Catherine Barton, it's going to be fascinating to see how this plays out over the next few
07:59 weeks and months.
08:00 Thank you so much for your time here on France 24 and hopefully we'll have you on again very
08:03 soon.
08:04 Thank you.