 So there is no question that the Russian intelligence was operating in a very major way. And this is also a war zone where Russia's future is at stake. So they anticipated the coup. They anticipated the coup. They anticipated, not that, I'm very sure, 100% I can tell you that the contacts that the Western intelligence established with this person was known to the Russians, authorities. They monitored it. Saturday the 24th of June was quite a dramatic day on the Russian front, as they say. On that day, the chief of the Wagner Militia, Yevgeny Prigoshin, suddenly said that he was launching what he called, strangely, a march for justice, but which was in reality an armed insurrection or a rebellion attempt, however you see it. And his forces advanced to some extent. There was of course a great amount of joy among Western commentators and experts, all of whom suddenly decided that Russia was on the verge of crumbling, that Putin was fleeing the country even. But the whole affair ended quite timely, almost 12 hours later there was a negotiation in which the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko was involved. Prigoshin basically left the country. His operations ended and all those predictions of the imminent collapse of Russia were proved completely wrong. So what exactly happened in Russia on that day and over the past couple of days former Indian diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar has been somebody who's been closely following the situation in Russia and has written some very keen analytical pieces explaining what happened in Russia as part of that coup. Thank you so much for joining us. Yes, thanks for inviting me. Yes, so I think for many viewers the first question, I mean, let's to look at the facts, basically the first question really would be what exactly was this 12 hour insurrection so to speak because when it came up, when it began Friday night, Saturday morning more or less, Prigoshin was like he's going to march to Moscow, he had all these demands of the saying that the Russian defense officials should meet him. He spoke as though he had been massively discriminated against and that he was on this quest crusade for justice. And then 12 hours later, everything kind of ended pretty timely. So what exactly happened behind the scenes? What is the aspect we're really missing here because a lot of people are very confused. You see the missing part is definitely that Prigoshin's descent incrementally, progressively transformed over time. And that is initially it began as a matter of the shortage of munition at the Bakhmut front for the fighters, the incapacities of all the inefficiency of the defense ministry and such aspects. Then it took on a form of a veteolic attack on the top brass, but including the defense minister, who's of course a very close aide to Putin. So it just stopped short of Putin. And then when the coup, it is a coup. I must have said, I should have said that in the beginning. There's no doubt about it. It is an attempted coup. When it began, as he moved from the camps in Lugansk, in Donetsk, now that is also an interesting part because the man realized by the time that after the Bakhmut operation was over, Moscow was circumscribing him, containing him by removing him to an obscure spot, pitching tents and staying put there in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do. So at that time, when he lost the operation, if you see the last statement that he made in, statements or other number of videos that he made on Friday, there was very heavy political content. And if you have been, any discerning observer could have made out and if you have been progressively following him as I had been doing in terms of his telegram Twitter and all kinds of stuff that he was social media he was taking to, there was a dramatic transformation of a political content was introduced into it. And when he ended there, he made outrageous assessments like this entire operation was a contrived affair and Russia faces no threat from NATO or Ukraine. Now, this is exactly what you would have heard from Anthony Blinken or somebody in Washington or in capitals such as London, Paris and so on. So this means that, you know, that he had carried away from a dissenter in terms of his personal issues, Wagner's issues, corporate issues with the Russian Defense Ministry to an overt political stance of challenging. After all, when you say that the special military operation is all baloney, that there's no such, it was completely unwarranted. He's questioning actually the leadership at the highest level because if you remember the operations began with a very major address to the nation by Putin where he's spelt out the factors under this. So he was no doubt taking on the regime to answer your question. It was a conception that, his conception was that he moved out of the camps in Lugansk, headed for Rostov where the headquarters of the Southern military command is located on the borders, close to the borders of something like about just 200 kilometers from the warfront in Ukraine is Rostov. Now that is where the Russian commanders, including General Garasimov, they used to visit there and used to operate from there in terms of, you know, monitoring the operations and so on. So I think there was some kind of a feeling that he would be able to take as captives, hostages the top brass of the Russian army because the operations of the Ukrainian offensive was going on and so on. But in the event, he found that except for the generals who were running the show there, there were none of those guys, big guys from, big fish from Moscow. It's a place that even Shoigu used to. So then he threatened that, he took over. So there were no resistance there because it is an army command center, you know, it is not a fortification or anything like that. So he came and encircled the place and took over and then he said that he found that there was nobody there. He said he is marching on to Moscow. So he started marching on with his tanks and armor and all that on the highway linking Moscow. Now that is a very hopeless endeavor. It's an, of course, it's an expressway, all right, but it's still 700 kilometers away, you know, marching on Moscow like that. And some reports say that he was already approaching Moscow region when, you know, the Russians, you know, didn't stop anything, didn't challenge or anything like that. So the point is, it was a political move. The unknown factors here, which will come out definitely is this, he was not a political animal of this kind previously. He was a money-making machine. He was an oligarch and he saw in the Wagner an organization which is not audited by the state with unlimited funding by the state and where he was the titular head by virtue of which he had access to enormous resources. Now the New York Times says on Saturday that it lately he had also been secretly siphoning off weaponry and so on and storing it, which means that somewhere along the line he started developing a political agenda. Right. Because the point is his heroism at a personal level is not to be questioned because after all, he was there in the front in Bagmot and it was a very fierce battle, which war of attrition, a decisive war of attrition. And secondly, his capacity to use the social media, effective. Very effective communicator for better or for worse. I've seen actually in the whole hierarchy there only Dimitri Medvedev coming close to this in using the telegram channel. You know, but there of course polls apart. This man is really great in that. So it is 100% sure that a oligarch of this kind would have escaped the attention of the Western intelligence. The man's personal wealth is estimated to be 1.2 billion dollars. So they had their eyes on him for quite some time. Definitely, because he's also reputed to be very influential in the corridors of power in Kremlin and some people usually he's called Putin's chef in the sense that he started in the catering business and he got massive lucrative contracts for catering to the Russian army and government departments and including the Kremlin. And these things are conceivably possible only with some political support, you know. So you see, he made his millions there and then Wagner is a different kettle of fish. So you see, then he graduated to that. So the American side and the British side, the intelligence, you know, would definitely have been putting a mark on him, would have put a mark on him long time ago before the war began. And the problem generally with the oligarchs is that, you know, there is an unwritten understanding from Putin that they must, they can keep their loot. He said this in a famous. You had written about it. Ambassador, but before we go to the oligarchs, I think one question I wanted to ask you is that the biggest square, I think the biggest thing everyone was talking about, speculating about, wondering about was that, was this, you know, a blow or a humiliation for Putin or was this something probably the Russians are anticipating? I think that is what is really divided. Correct. An analyst, so to speak. There's a lot school who says this was a blow to Putin. Actually. But your view is different on this. Yes, actually the thing is there's no question that place where Wagner is operating was crawling with the KGB. I'm using the KGB expression because, you know, it's very well known as an expression. It's called in a different FSB. It is called FSB. But the tentacles are there all over the place because the Russian system works much the same way as Stalin worked in Stalingrad, which is this, you know, the generals fight, but the commissars are sitting there and the KGB is sitting there monitoring the whole thing and with independent communication to Moscow and, you know, from where the war is handled and the generals don't fight wars. The wars are fought from Moscow, you know. So you see basically that culture is still there in the Russian system after the disbandment of the Soviet Union. So there is no question that the Russian intelligence was operating in a very major way. And this is also a war zone where Russia's future is at stake. So they anticipated the coup. They anticipated the coup. They anticipated, not that, I'm very sure, 100% I can tell you that the contacts that the Western intelligence established with this person was known to the Russians, Russian government, authorities. They monitored it. Now the big question, why didn't they act? I heard some reports, discussions yesterday saying that the Russians, the Kremlin messed up because they should have acted faster and all that. You see, the point is they're in the middle of a war. And at that time, an action which is smacking of disunity at home is not the good thing to project to the enemy. And this is a very grim existential struggle that the country is fighting. So and Putin is in his, if you followed him all through, you know that he's a man of infinite patience. He never acts rashly. And only with calculation, he acts. And he knows also the ins and outs of the working of the intelligence system. So obviously, a decision was taken to give this man a long rope. But concentrating on finishing of that Buckmouth operation because there is a very major stepping up due in terms of a proper Russian offensive, which not many people do not understand is up until now, the war has been fought by the militia groups. But the regular Russian army, military, is just moving in now only. So the military apparatus was not there. They were firing artillery and lobbing bombs and you know missiles and so on. But the foot soldiers of the militia. So you see they were preparing for a very major offensive now because the Russians have concluded that a military solution is all that is possible. And only with the complete eviction of the United States and NATO from the face of Ukraine can this problem be sorted out. A half a house is not possible. And they don't want to be bogged down in a quack mere fighting the Russians like Americans like this in a proxy war. So you see the agenda, why I'm saying all this very in a nutshell, the agenda is very profound and they didn't want a distraction there. So they let go and they were, I'm very sure that when I said Putin knows the working of the intelligence organizations and all very well, he was one of them. It's because you know that he knew that at any time, if the crunch time comes, they can act and just squash this guy. But why basted and why create a ruckus and why create confusion domestically? You know what is not outside, outsiders don't realize says that there is a very vibrant opinion making inside Russia also. If you see the social media telegram channels for instance, you will not imagine the amount of nonsense which is appearing there, critical of the Russian government, which is almost, you know, which even now Western correspondents sometimes quote from them to make their point. So you see the thing is there is a domestic opinion problem also for them to handle. So they let it run but supremely confident that they could fine tune it at its time and if a crunch time comes, they could act. They let it go like that. But when I think this, they think progressively developed this guy developedly, progressively developed the political agenda, the complexion changed. Because this is when that I mentioned to you the Putin's way of handling the polygarchs. Yes, actually I wanted to ask you more about that because it's interesting you brought in that aspect. There's been a lot of discussion about oligarchs after the war started, but even before how at one level they are seen as a key part of Russia's current developmental model. Unfortunately, they're very much there. You can't ignore them. On the other hand, there is also the feeling that they're widely disliked and they're seen as paragons of corruption in a sense. So how do you place pre-Gosin in this group of oligarchs so to speak, as in what role did the oligarchs play and how do you see pre-Gosin's rise in the context of that? You know, Putin watched the Elsin years largely from St. Petersburg in the initial years. Then he was brought over to Moscow as the KGB chief and then the A2 Elsin and so on. So he saw from very close quarters what was going on there at that time. And it comes as no surprise for anyone. He was a card holder of the Communist Party. He was a senior KGB official and all that. It doesn't need much guesswork to imagine the sense of revulsion within the security establishment of Russia that the country had come to this past. Decadence. Decadence. Even Prumakov was, you know, they were completely felt disgusted that the state was being stripped so clean and these guys were living in the fat of the land and having such a lifestyle and openly consulting with the Western countries to transfer wealth out of the country. You know, this is it. So, but he couldn't do anything because he was put in Elsin's appointee. When 2000 election, he won on his own, a mandate of his own on steam without any help from Elsin. Putin was a different man. He knew then that the time was available for him to push his agenda. So, in 2000, year 2000, in the summer of 2000, he took a meeting of these top 21 people. I've read various accounts of it. You know, I mean, Kremlin had never seen such limousines moving into this one and these guys coming out with their private armies and all that, you know, this oligarchs. That's what they were used to. They were calling the shots in the Elsin years. They had private armies, you know. They could commit murders. They could do anything they liked. And these are all people without any redition and who came from very sleazy background. By the way, Poroshen Iza also was a convict in the Soviet era. He was jailed actually, you know. So, this is the type of fellows who made rich by cutting corners and committing murders and so on. So, 21 of them came and then a closed-door session, he had a face-to-face interaction with them. Accounts have inevitably filtered later of what Putin said. So, if someone substance the message is this, that, you know, that look, if you look into the mirror, you don't look a very elegant people as you think you are. But then if you put the state of the country at that time, that also doesn't give a very elegant picture. Now, let's come realize this. Message is simply this, that I am in charge. And whatever you might have done in the Elsin years, it will not go on for long. I will want you to stop it now. But in the interests of the free market economy and its compulsions that have risen in the country, you can keep your businesses. And since you have this money and you were spending it on this kind of thing like private jets and yachts and all this kind of luxurious things or your children studying abroad and holidaying and all this kind of thing, I won't do anything of that kind. That is, whatever has happened, has happened. I am willing to live with that. But, and you are doing now also some of your very enterprising businesses which the country needs and the economy needs. But on the other hand, like you did in the past, do not interfere with the internal politics. Do not subvert Russia's governance. And like in the Elsin years, you know, they subverted even democracy. Elections couldn't be held freely. Zhuganov, the Communist Party head, should have won in 1996 if it were a free election. That was Russia's history. But these guys made it sure that Zhuganov lost final round and he was towering so far ahead. Which generates help from the Americans. American think tanks and everyone got into the act to see that Zhuganov didn't make it because, you see, they would have been helpless if through a democratic mandate to the West European type, if a Communist Party had come back to power within five years of the disbandment of the Soviet Union. It would have given such a big message to a time when there was so much of triumphalism that communism was dead and communism has been buried. You know, this was the situation at that time. So you see, that is all the work of these oligarchs. So Putin's message was this. And then, you know, he... So he told them that you can keep this but don't mess around with this. Those who didn't take it seriously had to pay a very heavy price. Simply put, they had to leave Russia. They had to leave Russia. And Khodorkovsky, who's living in America now, was rated as the sixth richest man in the world with, at that time, and he lives in exile in America. He didn't kill them. He just told them, just get lost. Right. That is what it... And then their assets, their businesses were appropriated. Khodorkovsky's was the energy company. Was nationalized and they went on, life moved on. So you see, this, also the same thing is the... What I see is actually, Putin has not changed one inch from his previous thing. This is not a personal vendetta for him. He sees his mission as something where he's been vested with the power to protect the Russian state from these predatory elements. You see, this is quintessentially the thing. Look at the deal that they have struck. I don't... If you look at it, say, elements, one principle element is that this man has been told to get lost. Of course, he's not been allowed to fly away to the West. He's being taken under custody to Minsk, where Lukashenko will keep a very sharp eye on him for the rest of his life if he continues to live there. But if at some time I'm very sure, if he just wants to go and live in Switzerland or somewhere, Putin will not mind. And then he has been segregated from the Wagner group. This is something... Prasad, you know, we need to analyze also where they went wrong. And then where the Russians went wrong. Wagner's. Wagner, okay. Now, you see, that is also a story by itself. Wagner is, because you know, the Soviet time, they were patronizing this national liberation movements, and that was a very big instrument of Russian foreign policy. And it helped the Soviets expand their influence globally. We know that. I don't need to dilate on that. But after that, they were no longer in a position to bangle the such movements. The ideology had retreated from the Soviet system. And the main mission was one of survival and preserving the national interests. But the point is the interest still continued. And Yugoslavia was the best example that their incapacity to intervene cost them heavily to go to the aid of the second biggest Slavic nation in the world after Russia was Yugoslavia. And it was just dismembered in their presence. They couldn't do a thing about it. This, and this took place when Putin was just taking over. All this would have really worked on their psyche because they decided that they must also have an instrument to exercise power abroad, which is cost effective. Just like the Americans have, the French have and all the black water and all this kind of thing have. But without the American agenda of bringing about regime changes, that is to say, they will deal with whichever established government is in power. They will not subvert it. Their dealings will be with the government. And through the government, they will operate in that country. If the government invites them, they will operate in that country. And other than that, they will not pursue your agenda. That is Wagner's agenda. Wagner's agenda. And this was, I think the key point you also made in the article was that this was not Prigoshin's agenda. This was the Russian state agenda. State agenda. And also another thing is, mind you, a technical detail. This Wagner group is a progeny of the Russian security military establishment. That's very important because I think it's very important. People attribute it just to Prigoshin and state Prigoshin army. It's not massenaries. It's an organization created by the state as a long arm to operate in faraway countries cost effectively in a self-accounting manner to further the Russian national interests without getting into any ulterior agenda of its own, like killing political leaders, overthrowing existing regimes, taking part in factional strife or anything of that kind. This is what Wagner is. But then the point is the state at the same time wanted, didn't want to be upfront. So what they did is they did a, what they thought was a smart thing which is boomerangt, which is to bring in a non-military figure in the front. And that's how this man came to be called the founder of Wagner. He was not a founder. He's not a military genius, nothing. And then he put on his fatigues and considered himself to be a marshal of the army. And he's started, you know, challenging the top brass sitting in Moscow. So you see, this is what happened. And now in the deal that I, today I wrote, in fact, there are five elements there. And one of the elements is this, that you know that they, it clearly makes out that they don't want to disband the Wagner like that because the Wagner has a mission and it still is in the interest of the state. But it's running, it has gone, it has run amok. Now therefore they will now bring it under the control of the defense ministry with accountability. And it will be run by professional, I'm sure, soldiers, generals, colonels, brigadiers and so on. That I am just conjecturing. But it is being integrated into this. And the same thing they are doing also to the Chechen militia is also being integrated now. Which means, you know, that they will be drawing salaries, these fighters. They don't have to plunder the land for their livelihood. Their families will be taken care of. The social welfare schemes, which are lavishly available for the Russian soldiers, they will also be entitled to get. They will get lifelong pension, Medicare, blah, blah, everything, you know? So this is what they're doing with the Wagner and they have drawn satisfaction that the bulk of the Wagner was unaffected by this call for mutiny. And that is actually what also finally ended this, how the coup ended. The man had, you know, just a stragglers, a few foot soldiers with him. And he knew that he can't take on Moscow with this kind of support. And he turned back from there. Absolutely. So I think all in all, the evaluation pretty much is that this was in some sense of very classic a fall of an oligarch in what has happened in Russian history in recent times. It is no different in some ways from many of the histories of other oligarchs. Only thing, of course, it is happening in midst of a war. Do you see this in any way affecting the progress of the situation, the war situation with the Ukrainian counter offensive? Not at all, not at all. That must be made very clear that, you know, that look first of all, you can see it very much in front of you that the whole country rallied behind Putin. We have bureaucracy, the civic society, and even the opposition like Gennady Shuganov, the Communist Party leader, he gave a thumping. What is, I mean, it opens a stirring statement, you know, saying that whatever might be our differences with Putin, this is the Putin he didn't mention, but with the regime, this is a time that we cannot afford it because the stakes are high. And he said, external forces and their fifth column in our country, they still continue to operate. This is what it shows. He was the first leader in fact. Shuganov is the first leader to mention about Western powers and their fifth columns in Russia, you know. So you see, Putin has this as a result of it, the effective way that he handled it, ensuring that there is absolutely no bloodshed in this matter. It would have been spun out of control if there were street fighting and all that. I think he is now in an unassailable position and the Americans will have to learn to live with him now for a long time. And much after Biden has gone, you know, we'll have to live with him. That is the first thing. And the second thing is, you know, a little known thing is that I wrote in today's piece, I quoted that, you know, that on the 22nd, that is two days before the coup, or the evening, the day before the coup, Thursday, the Russian Security Council met. Now this Russian Security Council is actually speaking, the Soviet Communist Party's Politburo, you know. That is effectively, that is how it's functioning is. And it was a full quorum meeting. And that's, which means a message had gone out from the Kremlin that there is something of extreme importance is going to be, sensitivity is going to be discussed and everybody, Lavrov, Patrushev, Medvedev, everybody, Volodin, everybody was there at that time for this meeting. And that meeting gives, you must read that, you know, that meeting gives you a flavor of the Russian mode today. You know, they have concluded, as I said earlier, that the Americans have to be taught a lesson. And their hegemony can be stopped only if they are humiliated left, right, center. On the battlefield. On the battlefield. So your question is answered there. There are no way that the Russian operations will be allowed to be affected by this. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Ambassador, for giving us. I think what is a very unique perspective because a lot of reporting like we both have been reading has been completely colored by how the West and Western sources are very wishfully, I think, interpreting this situation. Quite true. The number of analysts who are like Putin has fled the country. It's quite bizarre. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you, thank you. My pleasure. And that is all we have time for today. We'll be covering further issues on the Russia-Ukraine war, of course, also developments across the world on People's Dispatch and NewsClick. Do visit our websites. Follow us on all our social media platforms and keep watching.