Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Many ordinary Russians reached with eagerness and excitement to the Wagner Group's mutiny – from the woman who cancelled sex to await the Wagnerites' arrival, to the many who went out on the streets to take selfies with them. It indicates a widespread desire for change. ⬇️

2/ The independent Russian media outlet Verstka has been interviewing people in Rostov, Voronezh, Lipetsk, Moscow and Simferopol who followed Yevgeny Prigozhin's "March for Justice", and in some cases saw it first-hand.

3/ Their accounts reveal a widespread impression of Prigozhin as a straight-talking 'man of the people' and of his fighters as being honourable and polite people. Many interviewees also spoke of him as an agent of long overdue change.

4/ Rostov-on-Don designer Andrei was one of many who went to welcome the Wagner troops who briefly took over the city.

5/ He says his previous fear of them "vanished instantly", He observed "not a hint of fear" among the people of Rostov, "on the contrary. Perhaps people felt even safer than if the police were standing around."

6/ Andrei viewed the Wagnerites as "polite, adequate and tolerant" and as standing "for the people and for the citizens. They are people who have been through hell, but have retained their human qualities," he says.

7/ Oleg, a historian living in Rostov, comments that residents welcomed the sudden absence of the corrupt and disliked Russian security forces. "The power that tormented people had evaporated as a phenomenon ...

8/ "When they took over the [army] headquarters and the offices of the Interior Ministry, the FSB and the administration, there was a sense that the guys had come to overthrow the regime. And this caused a powerful and massive outburst of enthusiasm.

9/ "The Wagnerites left solemnly, but people were still partying all night long. They did not let go." Reports afterwards stated that police were booed when they reappeared in the city.

10/ Artur from Rostov and Mikhail from Voronezh both praise Wagner for its concern for local residents.

11/ "When they stood in position and expected a collision [with the Chechen Akhmat unit], they asked everyone who was nearby to leave, because they could accidentally catch civilians [in the crossfire]. They are good guys," says Artur.

12/ Mikhail praised the Wagnerites for the (relative) lack of bloodshed. "As professionals who have recently taken Bakhmut, for example, they are certainly doing a good job. Many years of uninterrupted experience in real warfare have an effect.

13/ "So it's hard for me to imagine that they could have committed a war crime.”

14/ 17-year-old Georgiy, an avid Counter-Strike player, is a member of a wider Wagner fandom. He's been following the group since its time in Syria and says he knows all their songs – "'Pig Cutter', 'Fuck the Nazis', 'Summer and Crossbows', 'Jumbo'".

15/ Georgiy says 70% of his friends on Steam are also Wagner fans. They "know how to fight", he says, and "they themselves captured Bakhmut." The Wagner 'brand' is particularly popular among Russian teenagers, who follow the mercenaries' exploits on social media.

16/ Polina from Rostov also met the Wagnerites and saw them as "men, not boys." She dislikes the Russian Army's indifference to people's problems and says they "act under the direction of the government."

17/ "While the PMC fighters are guided solely by the desire to protect the people. We want to marry them! I talked to them, they are smart, collected. They behave with dignity."

18/ After the Wagnerites left the city, Polina posted to social media a photo she took of one man who she'd like to meet again.

19/ This episode didn't go down so well with the men's wives, however. One Wagner wife, Ekaterina, bemoaned on a chat forum how the men had gone "a hundred years without touching a woman, and here are all these young ladies."

20/ "Yes, I know it's crazy, but you can't take these idiotic feelings away."

21/ In Moscow, at the other end of Prigozhin's planned march, content manager Anastasia was preparing for a night of sex with a Tinder date when she heard about the mutiny. "I quickly realised that I didn't want to have sex in such an emotional state," she says.

22/ "And then, if those thugs really get close to Moscow and they make us all stay home, am I just going to stay with the guy from Tinder for a long time?" She cancelled the date but found herself increasingly excited as the Wagnerites progressed up the M4 highway to Moscow.

23/ "I wanted a bit of movement", Anastasia says. "Not because I support Prigozhin, but because he gave a chance to stir up the swamp and provide some side benefits - for example, a split in the elites, panic or hasty wrong decisions that will contribute to such an outcome.

24/ She says that the mutiny has changed the situation in Russia, even though it was called off. "The feeling of the system's solidity and the inability to really change things have already ended."

25/ An evidently older Muscovite, Elena, recalled the events of 1993 when Boris Yeltsin besieged and then attacked the Russian Parliament Building, known as the White House. She was concerned about the possibility of violence and the effect on civilians.

26/ "I used to regard Prigozhin as a chilling infernal monster with a sledgehammer, but when he went on the rampage, he suddenly became associated with some hope for a brighter future," she admits. "I don't support him, but his intentions to tear this place apart."

27/ "This expected meat grinder gave me the feeling that now we should dive headlong into the shit, but it's because we may have found a way out."

28/ Mikhail from Voronezh calls Prigozhin's directness and openness "an excellent marketing ploy" in contrast to Russian politicians, who usually reflect the bureaucratic dullness of Vladimir Putin himself.

29/ "Prigozhin is not a politician, so he has the opportunity to say something directly, unlike officials who are afraid to blurt out something superfluous that could get into the hands of our enemies," he says.

30/ Alexander from Lipetsk and Oksana from Voronezh both contrast Prigozhin with more "distant" government officials. Alexander sees him as being close to the people and explains it by the fact that the ex-convict Prigozin served time "in places not so remote."

31/ Oksana contrasts Prigozhin with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu's son-in-law Alexey Stolyarov, who "shows luxury living" and spends amounts of money that are unimaginable to ordinary people. "In such a position I would twist such a son-in-law into a ram's horn," she says.

32/ "When Prigozhin announced the march, the thought flashed through my mind that maybe something would change, because there's no trust in the leadership of our army. It pisses Shoigu off! The Minister of Defence should be a patriot, not someone with children abroad".

33/ Oksana from Voronezh is more sceptical of Prigozhin, however. She says his convict fighters act like "killing machines" because "they have nothing to lose." But Prigozhin himself "is a slippery type, and there is no trust in him."

34/ "I have the impression that for money he will do whatever he is told to do on any side. He claimed that not a single drop of blood was spilled....But if ten people in a downed plane is not a single drop, then all his words should not be taken seriously."

35/ Tatyana from Simferopol is worried about reprisals against the Wagnerites following the mutiny. She says they're not a threat to civilians. "I was not afraid that civilians might suffer because of Wagner," she says.

36/ "After all, every single one of them is for the people and from the people. I trust those who have spilled blood for me. If I had been there, I would have stood beside them."

37/ Wagner wives are also still sticking by their men despite the mutiny. One of them, Maria, says: "The Wagnerites turned my boy-husband into a normal man. No rebellion can outweigh the gratitude for this."

38/ "Before he joined, the children and I were like an object on show for him, and he was never interested in things like lessons, but now he is constantly asking me how the little ones are, and how I am," says Maria.
"He says he loves them, misses them."

39/ "Before Wagner, I never heard anything like this from him."

Another wife, Ekaterina, says Wagner treats its men far better than the Russian military. (Accounts differ considerably.)

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1617515093381595136

40/ "I'll tell you this: Prigozhin has not left our guys alone under fire, has not thrown them into the front line into a blowtorch, has not delayed their salaries."

41/ "Look, even here [after the mutiny] he did not abandon the guys, he gave them a choice: if you want, go to the Defence Ministry, if you want, go home, but if you want, stay with the company. It was a human attitude, you know. A human attitude."

42/ "And if somebody is dissatisfied with something – leave, please, who is holding you back? They won't even zero out [kill] for that."

43/ In short, Wagner clearly still has a lot of support among the Russian populace. Putin's government is likely to have to work hard to convince them that Wagner are actually the bad guys, and Prigozhin may still present a political threat to Putin. /end

Source:
verstka.media/verstka-issled…