After Prigozhin’s aborted military coup, Putin is trying to dismantle his corporate empire.
According to information to the Wall Street Journal, the top job is expected to go to Putin’s mistress.
“Putin is trying to take control of a monster he himself created,” writes the Wall Street Journal.
After the Wagner boss announced the retreat of the military coup, Putin has actively tried to take control of the empire he himself created – the Wagner group’s main company Concord, owned by the paramilitary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, writes The Wall Street Journal.
Concord’s corporate structure includes Patriot Media Group, which owns several Russian news sites and the troll factory that wreaked havoc in the 2016 US election with its millions of pro-Kremlin messages on social media.
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Vladimir Putin and Alina Kabaeva at a banquet in Moscow in 2004.
1 / 2 Photo: Presidential Press Service/ITAR-TASS
The head position of the media company is now expected to go to Putin’s alleged mistress Alina Kabaeva, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The top gymnast who won several Olympic medals is believed by the US government to be the mother of at least three of Putin’s children. Kabeva has kept a low profile in recent years and the rumors that she would be Putin’s mistress has never been confirmed. She is subject to sanctions by both the US and the EU.
“Trying to take control of a corporate monster”
“Putin is now trying to take control of a corporate monster he himself helped create,” writes the Wall Street Journal.
The information is corroborated in the newspaper by official sources from Western countries, Africa and the Middle East, Russian defectors and documents showing more than 100 Wagner-controlled companies.
A couple of days after coup attempt, Russian officials told governments in Africa and the Middle East that their security forces, previously led by Wagner, will not operate independently.
Midsummer Day strike
The actions against the Wagner group already began during Midsummer’s Day when the Kremlin blocked the Wagner group’s and Concord’s social media. On the same day, the Russian security service FSB raided the company’s various subsidiaries in Saint Petersburg.
Among other things, $48 million in cash, fake passports, pistols and gold bars were found on site. As well as servers and computers from the Wagner boss’s communications empire Patriot Media Group.