Former supporters of Russian leader say he faces growing threat from Wagner’s mercenary army

Vladimir Putin faces a growing threat of a coup by the fearsome Wagner mercenary army and anti-Kremlin insurgencies in Russia’s border regions, former supporters of the despot said.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is working with unidentified figures within Putin’s circle in an attempt to oust the dictator, war analyst Igor Strelkov, ex-minister of defense of the Donetsk People’s Republic, claimed.

Strelkov said that with the Wagner army withdrawing from the war zone around the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, the mercenaries could be used as military muscle to oust Putin.

Meanwhile, former Putin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov predicted a revolution that would begin not in Moscow, but on the fringes of Putin’s vast empire in regions bordering Ukraine and falling into the hands of anti-Kremlin groups.

And today it emerged that several border settlements in Russia’s Belgorod border area were simultaneously shelled by Ukrainian troops, the local governor said.

In a statement published on the Telegram messaging app, Vyacheslav Gladkov said two industrial facilities in the city of Shebekino had been fired upon and four workers were injured.

Strelkov said that the “smuta” – pre-revolutionary unrest – has already begun.

He claimed that Prigozhin is working with unidentified figures within Putin’s power structures and that a serious blow to Russia’s war effort by Ukraine could spark massive changes.

“By the end of summer at the latest, the internal political situation in the country may change beyond recognition,” said Strelkov, who has 800,000 Telegram followers, including many middle-ranking Russian soldiers.

“Prigozhin has declared war on part of the army and the state elite,” he said. ‘Of course he’s not the only one. If he had been alone, he would have been eliminated,” Strelov said, pointing to the fact that there are thousands of Wagner mercenaries.

‘Of course it has a very strong roof [close to Putin’s circle],” said Strelkov, an ex-FSB colonel who was key to Russia’s conquest of Crimea and part of the Donbas in 2014.

Strelkov continued: “He is a member of the ruling mafia, of one of its factions. And now we see how one of the groups breaks the current situation.

“We see the declaration of an attempted coup…. ‘I don’t know what will happen next. Wagner hurries to take his men back to the bases. And its bases are scattered throughout European Russia.

‘That’s what I can conclude [pre-revolutionary] social unrest has begun [against Putin].’

Former Putin speechwriter Gallyamov predicted a revolution that would begin on the fringes of Putin’s vast empire in regions bordering Ukraine.

He highlighted recent raids from Ukraine into the Belgorod region by Russian partisans opposed to Putin.

“The recent events in the Belgorod region – mainly the inefficiency of the internal security forces – made me think that it is now impossible to rule out the transfer of part of the Russian border areas under the control of the Russian Volunteer Corps. [RDK]fighting on the side of Ukraine,” he said.

The mood in Belgorod, Voronezh, Bryansk and other regions along the border is now probably much more oppositional than in the country as a whole.

“The war hit them much harder than the capital, and such an uneven distribution of hardship creates serious negative potential.

“I think the people of the Belgorod region now feel that Moscow has pushed them into an adventure and left them to their own devices.

“Such interpretations literally destroy loyalty completely.”

Last week, experts claimed that the daring attacks by native Russian anti-Kremlin fighters on western Russia’s Belgorod region could “ram” Moscow and disrupt Russian forces in anticipation of a long-awaited Ukrainian counterattack.

The Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) and the Freedom Legion of Russia, armed with armored vehicles, small arms and a few tanks, charged across the border from Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and took a series of urban settlements to occupy about 5 to 8 kilometers of Russian territory . soil.

They later launched a pair of drone strikes on FSB and Interior Ministry buildings in the city of Belgorod on Tuesday night, prompting regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov to order the evacuation of nine Russian cities and the Kremlin to admit ‘serious cause for concern’.

Gallyamov – a Putin loyalist-turned-enemy said, “I think local residents will not show any particular resistance to the advancing RDK units.

‘The logic of their reflections will be something like this: ‘The new authorities are also Russians, only they are against Putin and for democracy.

And what about Putin? Why should I now take a machine gun in my hands because of him? [He can] Go to hell.

“It’s his own fault, he invented this stupid war… we’re sick of it [his] corruption’.’

An area bordering Ukraine could be labeled a “new – free of Putin – Russia,” he said.

“After the establishment of authorities there, it will be possible to gradually move inland and conquer more and more new settlements.”

He predicted: “I am far from suggesting that the RDK will storm Moscow, but that is obvious [this] scenario…will lead to a large-scale political crisis in Russia.

“The situation may develop in such a way that it will not even be necessary to take the Kremlin by storm.

A completely demoralized Putin will himself hand over power to a successor, and the regime will soon after [be forgotten].

“I’m not going to declare this scenario mainstream, but I won’t dismiss it completely now either.”

Shina and Cuba both had revolutions that started at the periphery, not the center, he said.

Strelkov – real name Igor Girkin – is a long campaigner for full mobilization and martial law.

He says he was denied active participation in the war, but despite regular criticism of Putin and his commanders, he was not arrested.