Now anyone can seize towns like Taganrog, get demands from Kremlin - political scientist Saakian

Political scientist Oleh Saakian said this on Espreso TV. 

“Nothing is over yet. All the questions raised by the Wagner PMC mutiny remain. The Shoigu-Prigozhin conflict, Putin did not give an answer - he now needs to make personnel conclusions that he really does not want to make. The conflict of elites within the country is not going away. Now, anyone can seize Taganrog and demand something else from the Kremlin, and someone can declare a 'retaliatory campaign' against Moscow. And can it be done with impunity if you have enough power?” he emphasized.

The political scientist added that Putin has demonstrated his weakness and this is also a question that remains.

“Third, the post-Putin period has now opened. All elites realize that they have to be prepared. It turned out that this scenario is realistic and they need to be ready for post-Putin Russia. Therefore, the race of elites is starting with double force. The fourth point is that against this background, a number of players did not immediately demonstrate their loyalty to Putin, and we need to draw conclusions. Those who got on airplanes and flew away, those who acted like Kadyrov. Putin now needs to repress them-to show strength, but the regime is based on the impunity of the elites. They are untouchable, they are a caste, and Putin guarantees them this, but now he needs to turn on the repression - it will be a challenge for Putin and his survival. Everything has just begun,” he summarized.

• On Friday, June 23, Russian troops allegedly launched a missile attack on the Wagner PMC base. Yevgeny Prigozhin said that 25,000 mercenaries were coming to deal with Sergei Shoigu. Read more about the events here.

• On the evening of Saturday, June 24, 2023, one of the Telegram channel, which is close to the administration of the self-proclaimed president of the Republic of Belarus, published a text from the press service of Alexander Lukashenko stating that Prigozhin had agreed to stop the convoys from moving to Moscow.