For months, the millionaire maverick head of private military contractor Wagner Group has hurled expletive-laced insults at Russian military officials in a fracture that has weakened the country’s forces in the war in Ukraine.
On Friday, Yevgeny Prigozhin apparently went too far.
He accused Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of ordering a rocket attack on the camps of his mercenary soldiers, which would have left a huge number of casualties, and warned that he would act to punish him.
That’s when the Russian authorities struck back: the country’s main anti-terror organization launched a criminal investigation against Prigozhin on charges of fomenting an “armed rebellion” with his threats to oust Shoigu.
It is a surprising turn of events in Moscow: after more than two decades of tight control by President Vladimir Putin, intense infighting between his most prominent lieutenants has come to light.
And it comes at a time when the war in Ukraine has reached 16 months and kyiv’s forces are facing off against Russian defenses in the opening stages of a counteroffensive.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had been informed about the situation and that “all necessary measures are being taken.”
Prigozhin, 62, insisted that his actions are “not a military coup, but a march for justice.”
The Russian Defense Ministry rejected Prigozhin’s claim that his forces had been attacked. And then the National Anti-Terrorist Commission, an arm of the Federal Security Service (SFS), announced the investigation against the millionaire and urged Wagner’s troops to arrest their own boss.
Prigozhin’s statement was a “stab in the back to Russian soldiers”, declared the SFS, and amounted to fomenting armed conflict inside Russia.
So far, Putin and the military have remained silent in the face of Prigozhin’s tirades against the military leadership. The failure to quell infighting was seen by some as a sign of possible changes in Russia’s political landscape, paving the way for more infighting.
A video that Prigozhin released in May was shocking, not just for what it showed but for what he said. He stood over the bloody corpses of his soldiers killed near Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine, shouting expletive-laced insults at Shoigu and the chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, calling them weak and incompetent and blaming them for the Butcher shop.
“They came here as volunteers and died to allow you to rest in their mahogany offices,” Prigozhin shouted. “You are sitting in your expensive clubs, your children enjoying the good life and shooting YouTube videos. Those who do not give us ammunition will be eaten alive in hell!”
That estrangement with the armed forces sharpened sharply on Friday, with his accusation that Shoigu had attacked Wagner’s forces. Prigozhin said his men were starting a mission to punish the military officials who ordered the offensive and urged the army not to resist, saying his soldiers will fire on any checkpoints that try to stop them and shoot down any aircraft that hit them. stroke.
“The evil embodied by the country’s military leadership must be stopped,” Prigozhin shouted in a recorded statement, adding that his forces are not seeking to challenge Putin or other government structures. “Justice will be restored in the armed forces, and then justice will be restored throughout Russia.”
So far the conflict has been ignored by state-controlled television, which is where most Russians get their news. However, he is closely followed on social media by highly patriotic and politically active readers and viewers, who share his contempt for the military leadership.
Harsh criticism continued despite the fact that the Kremlin often cracks down on other critics through fines and imprisonment.
While there are no signs that Putin is losing influence, “there are increasing signs of deep dysfunction, anxiety, concern about the war and real problems in mustering the necessary resources to fight it effectively,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, researcher for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
The discord between Prigozhin and Russian military leaders goes back years. It came to light in the middle of the fight for Bájmut, headed by his mercenaries. He has brought the man dubbed “Putin’s chef” for his lucrative Kremlin catering contracts to the forefront of Russian politics and shown his burgeoning ambitions.
With his expletive-laden comments, Prigozhin ventured to do what only Putin had done before: Over the years, the Russian president would occasionally breach decorum with a mundane remark or off-color joke, while top officials they used carefully worded language.
In another recent video, Prigozhin made a statement that some have interpreted as a thinly veiled attack on Putin himself. He stated that, as his men died due to the Ministry of Defense’s inability to supply them with ammunition, a “happy grandfather thinks he’s doing well”, and then referred to that “grandfather” with an obscenity.
The blunt comment caused a stir on social media, where it was widely seen as a reference to Putin. Prigozhin later assured that he was talking about Gerasimov.
“Prigozhin is saying much riskier things now than he ever has,” Gould-Davies told The Associated Press.
Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political commentator, described Prigozhin as “the second most popular man after Putin” and a “symbol of Russia’s military victory for millions of people.”
Putin needs Prigozhin’s mercenaries at a time when the regular armed forces are still reeling from previous setbacks in the invasion. The position of the head of the Wagner Group was bolstered after his private army captured Bakhmut last month in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, using tens of thousands of convicted prisoners who were promised clemency. if they survived six months of fighting.
“Putin dominates the system, but he’s kind of still reliant on a small number of prominent people to implement his will, to provide him with the resources to carry out his orders, including fighting the war,” Gould-Davies told the PA.
While Putin could keep various factions divided and then “decide who wins and who loses, and who’s up and who’s down,” the process erodes the government’s authority in wartime, Gould-Davies added.
“If your military forces are divided and if they’re not fighting together effectively, then your military operations will suffer accordingly, and that’s exactly what’s happening here,” he said.
Mark Galeotti, a London-based expert on Russian politics and security, surmised on a recent podcast that Putin’s failure to resolve political disputes could be rooted in a lack of interest, a focus on other issues, or, more likely, in a reluctance to take sides.
“It also raises questions about his overall ability to do his job,” Galeotti said. “This is the one thing, the one job that you really can’t outsource, and you’re not even trying to.”
Prigozhin has allied himself with other officials who support the war, including reportedly Tula region governor Alexei Dyumin, a former Putin bodyguard who many see as his possible successor. The head of the Wagner Group has also leaned for some time towards Ramzan Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed leader of Russia’s southern province of Chechnya. Although he denounced most high-ranking military officials, Prigozhin spoke favorably of General Sergei Surovikin, who led Russian forces in Ukraine for several months before Putin appointed Gerasimov to oversee operations.
But some of those alliances have been rocky.
While Kadyrov initially praised Prigozhin and endorsed some of his criticisms of the military leadership, he later reversed course, criticizing him for sounding defeatist. Kadyrov’s lieutenants went further, criticizing the actions of the Wagner Group in Bakhmut after Prigozhin made disparaging comments about Chechen fighters in Ukraine. Magomed Daudov, Kadyrov’s right-hand man, bluntly said that Prigozhin would have been executed for such statements had he made them during World War II.
Prigozhin quickly backed down, saying only that he was expressing concern about Russian operations.
The head of the Wagner Group has evaded questions about his ambitions, but in a move that reflected his desire to gain political influence, he recently toured Russia, continuing to unleash a deluge of outraged comments.
“There are indications that he is looking for some kind of political future,” Gould-Davies said.
Although Prigozhin owes his position and wealth to Putin, he is playing the role of an outsider by criticizing some leaders and trying to appeal to the masses amid setbacks in Ukraine, said Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. .
“Prigozhin is playing the role of an independent politician, increasing the risks and testing the limits of the system. But that will only be technically and physically possible as long as Putin considers himself useful and has fun with his escapades,” Kolesnikov said.
In a show of support for the armed forces, Putin backed the Defense Ministry’s demand that all private companies sign contracts with him, something Prigozhin has refused to do.
Prigozhin has called for all-out war in Ukraine, including full national mobilization and the introduction of martial law in Russia, calls welcomed by some who support the war.
But Kolesnikov notes that most Russians, who are mostly apathetic or unwilling to make bigger sacrifices, might be scared and dismayed by that message.
He cautions against overestimating Prigozhin’s influence and political prospects, and not underestimating Putin’s authority.
“It is enough for the commander-in-chief to move his finger to make the head (of the Group) Wagner disappear,” Kolesnikov warned.
