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Western intelligence agencies and analysts say Prigogine grew in influence as his private unit, which is allowed to recruit prisoners in exchange for amnesty, became one of the main drivers of the invasion. I’m here. This story is backed up by impressive numbers. The UK government and the US National Security Council estimate the size of the Wagner force at 50,000, 80% of whom have been convicted, and the UK estimates the group’s monthly spending at $100 million, making it a major suggesting significant state funding. Prigozhin, though wealthy from government catering contracts, cannot afford spending on this scale, paying 240,000 rubles ($3,500) a month for 50,000 soldiers, plus a bonus Wagner provides for volunteers (prisoners’ income). I couldn’t even afford to pay ).
At the same time, Prigozhin criticized official military leaders and even mocked them in the most disdainful way. In October, his Telegram channel on his public relations service quoted him as saying:
Today’s capable combatants have fought in dozens of wars, but many combatants who are part of the so-called “cadre” are known for anything other than how to heel, wear fancy clothes, and write pretty reports. has not learned anything.
Prigozhin has always taken care not to name names, but the official command of Vladimir Putin’s “Special Military Operations” under General Valery Gerasimov knows exactly who he means. seems to be Military officials tried to put Prigogine in his place with icy silence. For months, pre-war Telegram channels have noted that the only viable Russian line of attack in the disastrous fall of the invasion — against the towns of Bakhmut and Soledar in the Donetsk region — was largely Wagnerian mercenaries, or “musicians.” was reported to have been placed by ,” they call themselves. However, the Defense Ministry’s official report on the occupation of Soledar did not mention Wagner’s contribution at all, and said the victory was due to regular forces. A Telegram protest orchestrated by Prigogine prompted the ministry to amend its initial report, acknowledging “the courageous and selfless actions of Wagner’s Volunteer Storm Troops”.
At first glance, Prigogine’s influence—his exclusive right to release prisoners, his license to speak relatively outspoken in the land of buttoned mouths, his freedom to launch military campaigns independently of official orders, And of course, his inexhaustible financial potential may look like a political challenge, or at least a special claim to Putin’s credibility. He has long been tied to several old friends who share Putin’s intelligence background and experience in managing the city of St. Petersburg in the 1990s. Prigogine is not part of that circle, and the freedom ex-convict caterers enjoy in invasion-era Russia is likely an homage to Putin’s decidedly strange private enterprise ideas. St. Petersburg in the wildest years after.
By night, Russia’s second largest city was run by gangs at that time. According to many testimonies of the period, Putin, Vladimir, known as the “Knight Governor” of St. Petersburg, could not avoid contact with Barskov (also known as Kumarin). Knowing Putin personally, despite reports to the contrary). Known for his piracy, Coumarin ran a number of high-profile businesses and was rumored to have provided valuable protective services to Putin and his close friends, but he was imprisoned during Putin’s tenure. In 2019, he was sentenced to 23.5 years in prison.
Prigozhin has two convictions and started some of St. Petersburg’s most exclusive restaurants and casinos in the 1990s. He was part of a scene that Putin knew and understood, but to which he didn’t belong at all. In Soviet times, as a KGB officer, he was on the other side of the barricade from a street-smart entrepreneur. As an official and as president, he was willing to play with them on his own terms. A private initiative like theirs would be permissible if it served the interests of the state — and he was the state, or at least a growing part of it. He shouldn’t have, but he needed people who weren’t bound by that ethic.
Since the invasion began, Prigozhin has formidably demonstrated this kind of civilian initiative and superiority over Russia’s failed and corrupt state control. When the Ministry of Defense released empty and clearly false press releases claiming it had eliminated tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and thousands of equipment, sometimes more than Ukraine actually had, Prigozhin made terse comments. and sometimes flavored with prison-bred humour. rice field. I participated in eight of his wars and was on the winning side six times. (An incomplete list of these wars includes civil wars in Syria, Libya, Sudan, Mali, the Central African Republic, and Russia’s war in Ukraine.)
A deliberate show of respect for Ukrainian fighters is part of Prigozhin’s public discourse and absent from the official propaganda narrative. “The Ukrainian army defends the territory of the Soledar with honor.” Such rhetoric is a testament to the fortune soldiers Prigozhin cultivates for his army of desperados. Part of the image, he is often photographed or videotaped near the front lines. Channels closer to Wagner always show well-equipped and well-prepared soldiers, in contrast to Russians who were mobilized into the army without proper equipment and training. increase.
Mikhail Podryak, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, claims that Ukrainians pounded Wagner’s prisoner unit, killing, wounding, or taking prisoner a whopping 77% of the conscripted prisoners. In any case, Putin doesn’t necessarily care about reducing Russia’s prison population. No formal authorization of any kind is provided. Despite being awarded the prestigious Hero of Russia award, he holds no government office and does not appear next to Putin on official business. He’s not outright undeniable, but he’s also not accepted as part of Putin’s ruling class. It is well known that Putin is generous with his friends and does not push them away no matter what they do. A useful contractor who survives only by producing.
This would explain Wagner’s relentless efforts to capture two towns important but not important to Ukrainian defense in the Donetsk region: Soledar and Bakhmut. The Russians are engaging in the kind of frontal attack that has distinguished Wagner so far.
The unsophisticated tactics earned the ridicule of Igor Strelkov, one of the most eloquent figures on the nationalist side of the aggression supporters. so not a hero. Nationalists only despise business, and Prigogine’s activities are openly commercial. It is even suspected that he sacrificed all these lives just to obtain the salt deposits around Bakhmut and Soledar, which are among the largest in Europe. When the Wagner Group fought in Africa and the Middle East, mineral concessions were one of the rewards.
But the status of a talented businessman under Putin has been traditionally and unequivocally precarious, forcing Prigozhin to look for alliances among the official elite, if not among the generals. He took pains to emphasize his respect for the Chechen power man Ramzan Kadyrov. The governor of the Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, recently reported that he underwent a Wagner training course for fighters. As political analyst Tatyana Stanovaya wrote on her Telegram channel,
Prigogine is a man of no public standing… Essentially, he is a sole proprietor who is heavily dependent on his relationship with the government. Horizontal relationships with certain powers are very important to him, as he is in a very vulnerable position.
As Coumarin said in a rare interview, “It’s always worth remembering that glory, honor and respect can disappear in an instant.” It means that winning is essential, even when you’re out. In a country built around the state and designed to serve the state, his position as a non-state actor and his late Putin-era standards is more precarious than that of other aggression powers. Like a hamster on a bloody wheel, you have to keep running to stay in place.
Bloomberg Opinion Details:
Germany must move first if Ukraine is to win ‘maneuver war’: Andreas Cruz
The Great Lesson of the Ukraine War: There’s Only One Superpower: Hal Brands
Drone attack shows Putin’s homeland is not safe: James Stavridis
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Former Bloomberg Opinion European Columnist Leonid Bersidski is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation team. He recently published a Russian translation of George Orwell’s 1984 and Franz Kafka’s The Trial.
More articles like this can be found at bloomberg.com/opinion.
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