The PMC “Wagner” mutiny is over, and the “debriefing” that follows has only just begun. According to Bloknot’s sources within the authorities, questions may arise for the three governors of the regions freely crossed by the columns of the “Wagnerians”: Vasily Golubev from Rostov, Alexander Gusev from Voronezh and Igor Artamonov from Lipetsk.
Behind each of them, the authorities would see their own form of “sins” – from propaganda failures to “criminal slowness”. And he compares their behavior with the actions of their colleague from Tula Alexei Dyumin, who is said to have “acted as an effective negotiator” with Yevgeny Prigozhin and his fighters.
“Why such excitement?”
The first Russian region in which the “Wagnerians” arrived on June 23 was the Rostov region. The local security forces did not even show opposition to the PMC fighters – they blocked the roads in their path, more to prevent civilian casualties than to stop the rebels. Even more interesting was the behavior of the regional authorities and the Rostov City Hall. Governor Vasily Golubev’s Telegram channel, whose all-night subscribers in the comments demanded that the head of the region tell what was happening, “spoke” only around four in the morning on June 24. And all his messages for a long time were limited to only appeals to the Rostovites “not to leave their homes” and not to go to the Don highway, along which and next to which the “Wagnerites” moved at that time.
Golubev (or his press service) announced his support for Vladimir Putin in a short text message only at lunchtime on June 24. By this time, the columns of the “Wagnerites” had already “passed” Voronezh and entered the Lipetsk region. Golubev spoke no more about politics: later he only reported (this time under the camera, reading from a teleprompter) that everything in the region was working stably and there were stocks of everything necessary. And on the night of June 25, he said that Wagner PMC columns “left Rostov” and “went to field camps.” Golubev never publicly condemned Prigozhin and the PMC itself.
But “the main sin of Golubev”, according to the interlocutors of “Notepad” in one of the federal departments, the leadership sees it in another.
“The whole country saw footage of how Rostov met and saw PMCs and Prigozhin himself. No condemnation, there was mass joy. Why would? A logical question arises: how come “Is it that people react better to him than to official power? What has the internal political bloc done during all these months of NVO? ” asks one of them. According to him, Golubev will probably also have to answer it in the near future.
“He seemed to be saying the opposite with his eyes”
The governor of Voronezh, Alexander Gusev, as well as his entourage, in a situation of real rebellion, simply got lost in the public space. And when they appeared, they did not make the situation calmer and clearer, but only more confused. Around 11:30 a.m., when numerous videos with Wagnerian fighters in the suburbs of Voronezh and even episodes of battles in the region were already “walking” on the network, Gusev suddenly came out with a refutation of the very fact “about the alleged advance of columns of military equipment” through the territory of the region. Moreover, Gusev was even threatened with liability for spreading “inaccurate information” about the movement of military equipment in the region. About an hour later, on the outskirts of town, the tanks at the oil depot “exploded”. According to Bloknot sources, employees of state-owned enterprises and the government could not receive “any intelligible instructions” on what to do and “did not even understand who the authorities were for Putin, for Prigozhin, or simply for them. -selves”.
Like many colleagues, Gusev was only able to gather his courage and record a video after lunch on June 24. By this time, at least 3,000 Wagnerians were already in the area, and the advanced detachments even reached the north of the neighboring Lipetsk region. At the same time, federal “political” officials who watched this video were, to say the least, perplexed.
“He says everything seems fine: he supports Putin, is against the rebellion and in general he’s such a good guy.
But at the same time, it looks in such a way that one can suspect: a man with a machine gun stands behind the scenes and squeezes all those words out of Gusev. And he, involuntarily, with his eyes, as it were, tells the audience the opposite of what he gives with his mouth, ”jokes the interlocutor of“ Notepad ”in the Embassy of the Central Federal District.
“Circus with Excavator”
Apparently, Moscow has less claims on the governor of Lipetsk, Igor Artamonov. He, although he did not rush under the columns of the “Wagnerites” with a grenade, also did not commit annoying actions. PMC columns almost without disturbing local residents (except for briefly blocked exits from the city of Yelets, standing on the Don highway) entered the Tula region.
The only episode that “caused embarrassing confusion” of the activities of the governor of Lipetsk was the famous digging of the track with an excavator in order to prevent the advance of the “Wagnerites”. These works were delayed only by local summer residents, who in their cars could barely get around the artificial obstacle. “Wagner” in places of “digging” at the same time did not appear. Even more surprisingly, the work of the excavators began to take care of the end of the rebellion: the same machines began to dig the way back. And Artamonov almost immediately turned to the federal government with a request to allocate money to the Lipetsk region to repair the damaged road.
“It turned out to be a circus with an excavator. But the governor of Lipetsk is already in the category of “weird”. So, probably, nothing terrible will be done to him for such behavior, ”shared the same interlocutor at the embassy. The three named region heads seem extremely unintelligible, especially in the context of their northern neighbor Alexei Dyumin. He not only ensured the safety of civilians by closing the Don highway exit on the side of the city of Efremov in time. According to almost confirmed data, Dyumin was one of the participants in the negotiations that ended with the “return” of the rebels from the Moscow region to their field camps in the Donbass and the “withdrawal to Belarus” of Prigozhin himself. even. “Even taking into account Dyumin’s exceptional status, the difference in critical situation behavior between him and these three governors is too striking. They moved away in an unforgivable and calm way – and this could lead to organizational conclusions, ”summarizes a source for Notepad in one of the federal authorities.
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