The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, said on Monday 26 June at the end of a meeting of European heads of diplomacy that the situation remained “complex and unpredictable”, following an “abortive attempt at armed insurrection with the Wagner group as the protagonist” this weekend in Russia.
Yevgeny Prigozhin and a number of his troops advanced on Moscow on Saturday 24 June, before abandoning their project. It seems Mr Prigozhin wanted to oppose the integration of his mercenaries - around 45,000 men - into the regular Russian army from 1 July, as required by a decree signed at the beginning of June for all private militias.
“We remain vigilant and committed to strong coordination with our partners and with Russia’s neighbours”, explained the EU High Representative, while adding, like many European ministers, that this was an internal Russian matter. This “event took us by surprise”, admitted Mr Borrell. “We had nothing to do with it, but the causes and consequences will have to be dealt with”, he added, insisting that Europeans should not be held responsible, to avoid any disinformation.
“There are a lot of uncertainties, so we’re not going to speculate on what’s going to happen”, warned Dutch minister Wopke Hoekstra. There are three possible scenarios: - Yevgeny Prigozhin’s departure to Belarus with his army - unlikely; - the redeployment of Wagner in Africa - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that the mercenaries would continue their operations as ‘instructors’ in Mali and the Central African Republic; - the integration of the Wagner group into the regular Russian army.
The consequences of the aborted attempt could be both internal - affecting the stability of Russia - but also international, in relation to how the war in Ukraine develops or in Africa, where Wagner has a strong presence. According to the High Representative, the Europeans will be working on possible scenarios for what could happen.
Whatever the consequences, President Vladimir Putin’s image has been compromised. The events show that “the Russian state and Putin personally have lost credibility”, said Mr Borrell, who added that what was happening in Russia was undermining its military power and affecting its political system.
For French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, the events reveal “tensions”, “cracks” and “flaws” in the Russian system. “You almost get the impression that the Russian President is back to being a sorcerer’s apprentice, that he can’t get rid of the ghosts he called up and which are now going to pursue him”, said Austrian minister Alexander Schallenberg.
“With this brutal war of aggression, Russia, Putin, is destroying his own country [...] We can see that Russia’s leaders are increasingly turning against one another. And we are seeing massive cracks in Russian propaganda”, added his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock.
Several officials have warned of the dangers of the country becoming destabilised. If until now Russia was “a threat, a danger” for having invaded another country, the threat now comes from a “risk of internal political instability and fragility in an important nuclear country”, stressed Mr Borrell, adding that it was “certainly not good that a nuclear power like Russia could enter a phase of political instability”.
Luxembourg Minister Jean Asselborn felt that the monopoly on violence in Russia no longer belonged to the State, in a country that possesses 6,000 nuclear warheads. “A great destabilisation can occur and that’s very dangerous”, he explained. “Russia is the largest, or at least one of the two largest, nuclear powers on the planet. We cannot remain indifferent to what is happening there, and it should make us all stop and think”, added Mr Schallenberg.
Continued support for Ukraine
Whatever the situation in Russia, according to Mr Borrell, the ministers undertook to step up their military support for Ukraine, both in terms of equipment and training. He announced that more than 24,000 Ukrainian soldiers had already been trained, that the target of 30,000 trained soldiers would be reached “well before” the end of the year, and that this number could be increased.
However, the ministers were unable to get their Hungarian colleague to agree to an eighth tranche of aid to Ukraine of €500 million from the European Peace Facility. Hungary is making its agreement conditional on the removal of the Hungarian bank OTP from the Ukrainian list of international sponsors of the war. The High Representative promised that he would hold talks with Hungary and Ukraine to resolve this “appalling situation” “as quickly as possible”, saying that support remained “vital”. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)