So thought Rebekah Koffler, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst. Russian President Vladimir Putin “orchestrated” the uprising with Wagner’s mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhiin a “classic false flag” to try to make the West believe that its army was weakened.

Koffler said Fox news that the coup was designed as a way for the Russian leader to increase his political power and ultimately “gain momentum, mobilize additional personnel and revive his offensive against Ukraine”.

Prigozhin’s troops moved to Russia from their camps in Ukraine on Friday. and they assumed a regional military command in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, before advancing on Moscow.

The advance was suddenly called off on Saturday, and Russian state media said Wagner’s troops would return to Ukraine, while Prigozhin would flee to neighboring Belarus. “So again, what has changed about this in the last few hours? He suddenly decided to turn his troops around and made this deal? No, this is all a setup.said Koffler.

“Putin wants us to believe that he is weak, that there is a constant threat of military insurrection,” Koffler said. She continued: “So this is a pretext to declare martial law, which Putin has already done. He introduced an amendment today that anyone who violates martial law will be jailed for 30 days.”

The former analyst indicated that “another very interesting and revealing point is that Putin has just allowed men with criminal records to join the army. So this justifies the further mobilization of Russian troops to send them to the meat grinder in Ukraine… But this is all classic distraction and classic Putin.”

“Prigozhin is not a stupid man. He’s a very smart ex-con. He turned his life from prisoner to hot dog stand owner and then owner of a multimillion-dollar business serving the Kremlin, including Putin himself,” Koffler recalled.

Wagner’s fighters left Russia’s southern Voronezh region on Sunday, the local governor said, after the group halted a dramatic uprising to topple Russia’s summit and U-turned in a march toward Moscow.

“The movement of Wagner units through the Voronezh region is coming to an end,” said Voronezh governor Alexander Gusev. “It is proceeding normally and without incident,” Gusev added, saying that travel restrictions imposed during Saturday’s anti-riot operation will be lifted once “the situation is finally resolved.”