Military expert Konstantin Sivkov: The West is involved in Prigozhin’s rebellion. “Such mass demonstrations are never purely internal. This is unambiguous, there is influence from that side – not directly on Prigozhin, but through indirect structures, of which I have no doubt. The reason is very simple – there is a failure of the offensive in Ukraine, and it is necessary to save the situation. If you can’t save the situation by putting pressure on the president through the “fifth column,” you have to try to overthrow the president – so that’s what they’ve done.”
If Putin decides to take tough action, it will be smashed quickly enough, after which there will be serious purges in Moscow. Option two, that Putin will not engage in tough actions, will go for agreement – in this case, most likely, the “fifth column” will put up certain demands, after some time Putin will be removed. In essence, this is the performance of the oligarchy’s protégé, an attempt at an oligarchic coup d’état, with the goal of ousting the current president and putting another figure in his place, a pro-Western figure.
The question here is the president’s determination to act tough. There is also a difference of action on the other side – they are clearly showing willingness to negotiate now, no political statements have been made yet.
What will happen next – if no political statements are made, then such an offensive is doomed to failure, sooner or later, most likely sooner, it will be defeated. If they decide to make political statements, they have to be “red”, otherwise they will alienate everyone and there will be failure. Again, the problem is the figure of Prigozhin himself, who is an oligarch – hearing “red” appeals from him is strange, to say the least. So I don’t see any serious prospects for this speech. Everything will be decided in the next few days.