MOSCOW Wagner mercenary company manager, businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin has decided to continue his own private war against the Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu against.
In his new video, Prigozhin says that Russian troops are already withdrawing in the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia.
– The Ukrainian armed forces are pushing the Russian army, we are being washed with blood, no one is providing reserves, there is no leadership of any kind, says Prigozhin in his press department by posting a video.
According to him, the Ministry of Defense is betraying the president Vladimir Putin.
Talks about dozens of destroyed Leopard tanks and thousands of fallen Ukrainian soldiers are total nonsense, Prigozhin accuses.
This isn’t even the worstwhat Prigožin says during his half-hour-long outpouring.
He already goes to the basics of the “military special operation”, the open war of aggression that Russia started in February of last year, and denies them.
– The armed forces of Ukraine were not attacking Russia with NATO, Prigozhin says in the video.
– The Russian Ministry of Defense is deceiving the public and the president.
He says that the Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskyi was ready to agree on things when he became president.
– It would have been necessary to just descend from Olympos, go and make an agreement with him, Prigozhin said, referring to Ancient Greek mythology about the dwelling places of the gods.
Prigozhin says that the war was started so that Defense Minister Shoigu could gain honor and fame: the title of marshal and the Golden Star of the Hero of Russia.
– All this just so that this star would be brought to the pillow of one mentally ill person when he is lying in a coffin, Prigožin says in the video.
Prigozhin also blames the war on the clan of oligarchs, who, according to him, wanted to put an oligarch in charge of Ukraine Sergei Medvedchuk in order to share Ukrainian holdings among themselves.
The whole situation seems absurd. For similar speeches in Russia, opponents of the war have been given multi-year sentences for defaming the armed forces.
The two big questions are why Prigozhin has been untouchable until now and how long this can continue.
Prigozhin is just one of those political entrepreneurs who sell their good favors to the Kremlin. His position will ultimately depend on whether he is a benefit or a detriment to the Kremlin.
President Vladimir Putin already took a stand on behalf of the Defense Ministry when he said last week that fighters from the Wagner mercenary company should register under the Ministry of Defense.
It’s hard to know what’s really going through Prigozhin’s head. He lives on publicity and seems to always want more of it.
Perhaps Prigozhin feels that he has nothing left to losethat he has already gone too far to back down in the power struggle.
Perhaps Prigozhin draws attention to himself so that those in power simply do not dare to take action against him.
It may be that he draws a sharp line on the support of nationalist circles: the Kremlin does not want to offend the most fanatical supporters of its war project.
Prigozhin also presents himself as a man of the people by accusing oligarchic circles. At the beginning of his presidency, Putin himself raised his support by attacking unpopular big businessmen.
Perhaps Prigozhin thinks that in the form of Shoigu, he is offering Putin a good scapegoat on whose shoulders the entire failed war project can be blamed.
Prigozhin probably underestimated Šoiguwho doesn’t make a big fuss about himself but works effectively behind the scenes.
Researched the Russian violence apparatus Mark Galeotti paid attention to Šoigu’s game moves In his column in the Spectator magazine last March.
Last September, Šoigu moved aside the deputy defense minister in charge of logistics, Dmitri Bulgakov, who was considered Prigozhin’s man in the defense ministry.
Then Prigozhin was deprived of the right to recruit fighters from penal camps.
In January, the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov took charge of military operations, and the brutal general praised by Prigozhin and hard-line nationalists Even Sergei Surovik was demoted to field commander.
On the other hand, the battles for Bahmut took a heavy toll on the crew of the Wagner forces.
So it’s no wonder if Prigozhin feels cramped. More and more attacks against the power elite perhaps indicate that the man known as “Putin’s chef” does not know how to back down.