Russia is not a strong nation, a former KGB agent has said during a state television broadcast in the wake of the Wagner mutiny which shook the Kremlin over the weekend.
Fighters following Wagner Group chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, declared they would "march for justice" on Saturday after the mercenary leader accused Russian officials of targeting his recruits in Ukraine. The mercenary force has been key to Moscow's war effort in Ukraine, but the relationship between Wagner and Russian authorities has always been tense.
The Wagner soldiers crossed into the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don from Ukraine. The fighters then advanced towards Moscow, before abruptly stopping and turning back.
In an address on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that those who "organized and prepared the military rebellion" would "answer for it." It was then announced that Prigozhin would relocate to Belarus with the criminal charges against him dropped.
On Tuesday, Russian state media reported that the FSB, Moscow's federal security service, had closed its investigation into criminal charges relating to the mutiny.
The insurrection, which lasted less than 24 hours, exposed deep cracks in Russia's leadership, according to officials in the West.
Speaking on a state television broadcast alongside several prominent Kremlin propagandists, an ex-KGB sleeper agent has backed up this assessment.
Meanwhile in Russia: Andrey Bezrukov, former KGB sleeper agent who is now a Professor at the MGIMO University of International Affairs, says the Prigozhin rebellion demonstrates that Russia is neither a strong or a normal nation.https://t.co/4v9IANKFF9
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) June 26, 2023
"This couldn't happen in a strong nation," Andrey Bezrukov said on the Russia-1 television channel, in a clip posted to Twitter by Julia Davis, who runs the Russian Media Monitor account.
"For 20 years, the President has been working on this," Bezrukov said, in a translation provided by the social media account, adding: "Our goal is to turn this nation into a strong country, a normal country where these things would be impossible."
"We should be building a great country," he continued. "We can't keep evolving in this manner."
Bezrukov was living and working as a sleeper agent under the name Donald Howard Heathfield, until he and his wife, another Russian agent known as Tracey Lee Ann Foley, were arrested by the FBI in the U.S. in 2010. The pair were deported to Russia in a spy swap, and their story inspired the hit television show, The Americans.
In an audio clip released on Monday, Prigozhin said his fighters did not "march to overthrow Russia's leadership" but to "avoid [the] destruction of Wagner."
In a combative speech to the Russian people, also released on Monday, Putin said the organizers of the march were "betraying their country, their people."
"They lied to them, pushed them to death, under fire, to shoot at their own," the Russian leader said, according to a Kremlin readout of his address.
Blaming Ukraine and its Western supporters for the weekend's chaos, Putin insisted that "from the very beginning of the events, all the necessary decisions were immediately taken to neutralize the threat that had arisen."
"Everyone was united and rallied by the main thing—responsibility for the fate of the Fatherland," he added.
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.
