Wagner boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin was branded a traitor by President Vladimir Putin. But after a brief rebellion, Prigozhin won popular support and lived to fight another day.
RIGA, Latvia — Before Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin sent his private army marching on Moscow this weekend, he told Russians that for the country to stand a chance of winning its war in Ukraine, it must become a “North Korea-style” state with the death penalty in force.
“Regarding the betrayal of the motherland, the president is deeply mistaken,” Prigozhin said in an audio message announcing the pullback.“We are patriots of our motherland, we’ve been fighting and continue to fight, all Wagner fighters, and no one plans to go and confess at the request of the president, the FSB or anyone else, because we do not want the country to continue to live in corruption, deceit and bureaucracy,” he added.
Intentionally or not, Prigozhin showed that Russia is not only at war with Ukraine but on many levels is also at war with itself. Thousands have left the country because they disagreed with the invasion or fled for fear of being conscripted to fight. Others are in jail, or living in exile, because they voiced opposition to the war, or to Putin.
“He raised the stakes very high, posing as the savior of Russia, but once the Ukrainian counteroffensive began, the army managed without him and Wagner was completely sidelined,” Soldatov said. “Simultaneously, the Defense Ministry said it’s time to sign the contract, and he felt that he is being cornered on this chess board.”
The Kremlin, which also kept up a charade for years claiming that Wagner was completely independent from the Russian state, relied on the mercenaries in the war’s heaviest battles, with Putin eventually publicly thanking the group for its achievements. “Of course Prigozhin is not convenient for them, he speaks the truth about the military’s rotten structure and they’d need to get rid of him, but I heard that Wagner fights well,” Yekaterina added.
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