The atmosphere has changed imperceptibly in Moscow since the Wagner private militia went into a state of insurrection on Friday June 23 and announced their intention to ” to walk “ on the Russian capital. Less than twenty-four hours later, shops, cafes and public transport are functioning as usual. No crowds in supermarkets to stock up, either.
On the contrary, it is precisely the low attendance of the center that is striking, even if the streets are far from being deserted. Families walk there quietly, ice cream cones in hand, passing electric scooters and delivery bikes, but for a sunny Saturday in early summer, the account is not there.
There are other signs: police cars speeding by, sirens blaring; museums evacuated amid bomb threats; the recruitment posters for Wagner hastily taken down, there as elsewhere in Russia; the armed men (from truncheons to Kalashnikovs) in front of the administrative buildings… In front of those of the presidential administration, it is, unusually, soldiers who stand guard. Few, however. The armored vehicles that had been seen during the night, for example in front of the Duma, the Russian Parliament, have disappeared.
From the most baroque to the most disturbing
In the bus, a certain heaviness, the faces are fixed on the telephones. The images of the dams that are being erected little by little in the distant suburbs or in the regions bordering the capital parade on the screens, from the most baroque to the most disturbing: derisory sandbags, trucks across the road, trenches dug the backhoe loader in the asphalt… On the Moskva River, a two-hour drive to the south, a bridge has been dismantled. Closer, helicopters were seen flying over the city. On the Kachirskoye causeway, 40 minutes from the center, armed soldiers were photographed lying on the grass of the verges, waiting for who knows what.
On the phones, there is also what we do not see, but also what we can only guess: tickets to Istanbul, Astana or Tbilisi which are sold out, other destinations whose prices are soaring ; rumors of departures of members of the elite; those of prisoner revolts, of which at least one, in the north of the city – where the opponent Vladimir Kara-Mourza is detained – is proven; the rumors evoking a possible curfew… And of course, the news of the progress of the columns of Wagner mercenaries, at least as far as the region of Lipetsk, 400 km to the south.
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