to victory with up to 44 percent of the vote, across ukraine, there s been intense speculation about how events in russia will affect the counteroffensive currently under way. the bbc s mayenijones is in kyiv. like millions of people around the world, ukrainians followed this weekend s events in russia closely. for a brief moment it seemed like president putin s iron grip on russian politics might be coming to an end, but as many people here in kyiv wake up on sunday morning, they still don t know what to make of it all. translation: we hoped things would advance, . that prigozhin will change his mind and join the ukrainians. but money does miracles. he was obviously paid off. he has basically surrendered. translation: for me, both prigozhin and putin are war criminals. they bomb peaceful cities while people are sleeping. for example, yesterday everyone was talking about prigozhin when ukraine was hit by missiles. i m not interested in him. he is a criminal. translation: ev
well, the last day or so has seen an extraordinary turn of events in russia. the russian president vladimir putin has survived an immediate threat to his power after the leader of the wagner mercenary group agreed to end his mutiny against the russian army. yevgeny prigozhin called off his wagner troops march to moscow late saturday night after negotiatings with putin s ally and belarus s leader, alexander lukashenko. he also agreed to leave russia for belarus, and the kremlin have said it will not pursue punishment against him or his wagnerfighters. but there are many questions that are unanswered about what happened. well, to unpack some of them, i m joined now by a panel of experts. joining me live are vitaly shevchenko, who is from bbc monitoring in the newsroom with me in london. meanwhile, jade mcglynn is a researcher at the war studies department at king s college london.
of those questions is, was this real? was this possibly a ploy? this question is being asked both by supporters of vladimir putin and his special military operation and opponents of the kremlin, and one reason for that is because, for many years, what has been happening in russia has been shrouded in secrecy, and time and again, what russian media and officials told their audiences in russia, it turned out to be, well, untrue. let s pick up on that ploy potential that you touched on, there, because that s what a lot of our viewers and readers of the website have been asking. could this be employed to redeploy prigozhin and his wagner forces into belarus so they could then potentially have another attempt at a lightning strike on kyiv, which lies to the south of the belarusian border? we know we have seen in recent weeks and months that those
joined the mutineers, even describe this as a test of maturity which he said the country had passed with flying colours. we said the country had passed with flying coloure said the country had passed with flying colours. we will talk about what some flying colours. we will talk about what some of flying colours. we will talk about what some of the flying colours. we will talk about what some of the elite flying colours. we will talk about what some of the elite have - flying colours. we will talk about| what some of the elite have been saying and why it is really important what they say matters to president putin, the very quickly, what about accounts belonging to wagner? are they still up and running? wagner? are they still up and runnina ? , ., wagner? are they still up and runnina ? , . , ., running? they are up and running, and i think running? they are up and running, and i think they running? they are up and running, and i think they are running? they are up and runn
wagner fighters have been incredibly effective. it took a long time for them to succeed and bakhmut, but they eventually did it. could this be a part of a longer term tactic, do you think? well, it s the most extraordinary way to achieve that outcome. it s the most convoluted possible way, and i think some of the supporters of vladimir putin as this 3d master chess player, which is a reputation i think that has not survived certainly the last 18 months, are trying to argue this is a very complicated way of having a purge and then moving these people to belarus. i mean, you could do it much more secretly and quietly enjoy much less attention to that move in other ways. plus, at the moment, it s completely unclear where the wagner group fighters are actually going. there is no indication they are going to belarus, it s just that that s what prigozhin has been offered. though whether or not he s even gone there is a separate issue, or going there. he is rather disappeared at the moment. s