Russia did not face an imminent security threat to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary outfit, said in a bombshell video posted on social media Friday. “The Armed Forces of Ukraine were not going to attack Russia with the NATO bloc,” Prigozhin explained in the half-hour tirade released by his press service. “The Russian Defense Ministry is deceiving the public and the president,” he added.
This is huge. If this video reaches the Russian population it could lead to the end of the war. Prigozhin is not someone to be taken lightly.
This particular wording is interesting. Prigozhin doesn’t blame Putin. He blames the Defense Ministry. This might be a way out of this war for Putin.
The reality of the situation is that Russia doesn’t work the same way as Western countries. Or most countries for that matter. The structure of power in Russia is completely different for historical reasons (you can learn more here https://youtu.be/f8ZqBLcIvw0).
The short version is that in most countries members of lower classes of the society compete with members of the higher classes for rights, privileges, etc. In Russia members of the same class compete with each other to please the higher classes for privileges, etc.
The situation in Russia right now is that there are three major military forces: regular army, Wagner group and Putin’s private army.
Regular army and Wagner are in the same class and they compete with each other. Regular army is highly corrupt, inefficient and pretty much rotten to the core after decades of mismanagement. Yet it still poses some threat to Putin. Wagner group is a small and efficient (compared to regular army) force. It won’t be able to take an open fight with a regular army due to man power, but it’s string enough to hold a punch here and there.
Prigozhin shits on regular army to win points in the eyes of Putin. Putin then uses Prigozhin’s critique to put dump the faces of generals into their shit and to control them. Regular army doesn’t like this though and is now planning counter offensive against Prigozhin. And this is something people in the West rarely hear about.
So, the latest news of this in-class fighting! Prigozhin has a contract to supply regular army with food rations and he is using these profits to execute military operations across the world in the interest of Russian Federation. Sometime ago Shoigu took over army control. He also has legislative powers. So he decided to increase daily spend per person. Sounds like free money for Prigozhin? Of course not! Once the spending was increased, a lot of oligarchs started to get into Prigozhin’s supply chain. And he didn’t like it. So he wrote an official letter to Shoigu that he won’t be complicit in corruption, that it undermines his ability to fund his operations and that Russian MoD should find another food supplier. Big thick fuck you to Shoigu!
But that was the first play. Right now Shoigu is pushing another bill to force independent military groups to become part of regular army or, at least, be controlled by the army. Now that will hurt Wagner group a lot. The question is what will Putin do about it as he’s not interested in losing Prigozhin.
I knew that Prigozhin hates Shoigu, but I didn’t have the perspective you gave.
Prigozhin doesn’t involve Putin in its rants, and it makes perfect sense with what you are saying. But could he go at war with the regular Russian army like he’s saying? He’s talking about “tens and tens of thousands” of loss on his side, and calling about overthrowing corrupt leaders? That’s crazy.
I don’t know his real capabilities, but I don’t think he can go to war. And there’s no need. The whole point of the power system in Russia is to serve your Tzar better than your peers.
Btw, here’s the letter from Prigozhin to Shoigu I mentioned, it’s in Russian, obviously:
https://cdn.jpg.wtf/futurico/74/73/1686494576-747304f253e4b429f2200447d9928b24.jpeg
https://cdn.jpg.wtf/futurico/6b/95/1686494601-6b950ef5df7d7fe5eb0b96f7480f8bc2.jpeg
That seems to me more a way in for him in the ministry of Defense. Scapegoating current defense minister and replacing him…
Why would he want to? Merc work has given him more money than god, and he has political power too, being the bug in Putin’s ear for so long and directly benefiting from his rise to despotism.
Interesting. I’m not sure how well Putin can play the “they deceived me card”, considering it may make him look weak. But punishing the “deceivers” may make him look strong. Who knows? I guess it depends on what the Russian people want to believe.
Well, at this point Putin knows is fucked. He won’t be able to sustain the war effort in Ukraine very long and the embargo on the country will have long lasting economic consequences. The rest of the World won’t let it go… unless he stops the war.
He is also under arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court. It’s his best chance of not spending the rest of his life in prison.
Is he fucked though? A lot of generals and other army higher ups got killed, a lot of oligarchs jumped out of the windows, almost everyone who posed any threat to Putin is now gone. At the same time those who showed support got suddenly rich. The amount of Russian billionaires has increased five fold during the first year of the war.
If anything, this war has helped Putin to clean up government and olygarchy, and ensure that his rule is unchallenged. Putin is not fucked, he’s golden.