Even if few observers of the Russian political scene bet on the future of Yevgueni Prigojine after his mutiny on June 24, his disappearance, if confirmed, will precipitate part of the world into the unknown and in the first place , the Wagner militia. Can she survive the disappearance of her leader?
Did Vladimir Putin finally resolve to sacrifice his creature? Yevgueni Prigojine, both symptom and avatar of the mafia excesses of the Russian oligarchy, media troublemaker and filth, did he pay for his arrogance and, above all, after seeing the elites ridiculed, questioning the military institution and his propaganda in Ukraine, has he crossed the red line: attacking, even indirectly, the leader, the master of the Kremlin?
” Of course we’ll end up in hell “, had prophesied the former thug and head of Wagner before concluding: “ But I know that also in hell we will be the bosses… Precisely, Prigojine perfectly embodied the “Wagner DNA”: an unprecedented alloy of state mercenary, dissimulation, mysteries, but also and above all of extreme violence, impunity and predation without forgetting one of its brands. of factory: the informational war or how, well before the others, he knew how, at little cost, to propagate a speech favorable to Russia and hostile to its targets, including France in West Africa.
Armed arm of Russian influence, Prigojine undoubtedly believed himself to be a free electron in a world designed and defined by Vladimir Putin. If the fall of the boss of Wagner also has warning value in Putinian circles, the Russian model of the private military company is now patented. Wagner or no Wagner, it doesn’t matter, seen from Moscow, the paramilitary software is ready to be updated and made permanent.
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The Wagner group, although the most powerful and well-known, is far from the only Russian militia
If, thanks to Wagner, Russian power has become permanently anchored in an international nebula stretching from Syria to Sudan, from Libya to the Central African Republic, to Venezuela and to the Sahel, the group of Evgueni Prigojine and Dimitri Outkine, the another leader also killed in the crash, above all paved the way. The audacious coup of last June 24 against Moscow which will have earned Prigojine to be described as “ traitor on national television by his mentor had, no doubt, already suggested that the cards would be reshuffled. Wagner with another boss, name change or outright replacement?
It must be said that the Russian president had long since taken the lead in encouraging his relatives to create their own paramilitary groups. Several dozen militias have thus been founded in recent years, such as “Enot”, “Patriot” or “Convoy”, belonging to personalities as varied as the boss of the giant Gasprom or Sergei Choigou, Minister of Defense and beast black from Prigozhin.
Is this very daring system of influence designed by the Kremlin unstoppable or even infallible?
The tragic end, proven or not, in the Russian sky, of the leaders of Wagner, will also have brought to light the extreme fragility of a power in Moscow which, even if it remains implacable, seems to continue its brutal headlong rush and paranoid that isolates him more every day.
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The excessive use of these famous “PMCs”, private military companies, officially prohibited by the Russian Constitution, embodies the dark side, increasingly preponderant, of the reign of Vladimir Putin. If he widely boasted of his successes abroad, in his combat or military training missions, the head of Wagner was also sometimes mistaken, as in Mozambique or on the Bakhmout front. As for its financial model – security against money – there is no evidence today that it is so profitable and could not have survived without the secret help of the Kremlin.
The elimination of Yevguzni Prigojine is therefore a very short-term solution for Russian power and the future of the strategy of influence remains, in any case, uncertain.