Annoying and challenging Russian President Vladimir Putin has always been a dangerous game, often ending in flight from a higher floor or “inconspicuous” suicide in a dacha, writes Politico.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, a number of well-known Russian personalities have died prematurely. At least seven Russian oligarchs have met a bad end, and officials have not been spared from premature death under peculiar circumstances. So it’s only a matter of time before the owner of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who likes to speak in profanities, could meet the bony one.
Prigozhin said that Putin is still convinced that the war will bring Russia a grand victory: “If he turns out to be right, God bless everyone.
But what should the country do … if it turns out that this grandfather is a complete asshole?”
Later, the owner of the Wagner group claimed that he did not mean Putin, but observers believe that such comments mark Prigozhin’s departure.
When Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and Prigozhin added to each other’s complaints about Russia’s military leadership last year, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that regional leaders had the right to express their opinions. Later, Peskov warned that Kadyrov and Prigozhin’s comments do not yet violate the law, but the line is very fine. Kadyrov seems to have taken the hint. However, Prigozhin did not miss any opportunity to quarrel with the army leadership.
Prizgozhin’s connection with the president is long-standing, long before Putin became the head of state.
The two became chums in the 1990s in St. Petersburg when Putin was a rising star in politics and worked as a top adviser to the city’s mayor, Anatoly Sobchak.
It is believed that the two were brought together by gambling – Putin was the chairman of the gambling supervision commission at the time Prigozhin wanted to open the first casinos in St. Petersburg.
Prigozhin benefited from generous government food procurement contracts. He, on the other hand, was interesting to the Kremlin for his contribution to the information war – the trolls of Prigozhin’s Internet Research Agency produced misinformation and tried to influence political and public processes both in the USA and in Europe and Africa.
Prigozhin’s
mercenary army has been used as a tool in Russia’s foreign policy, supplying fighters for dark operations
not only in Ukraine but also in Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, Chada, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger.
Some Russian opposition leaders say Putin has been comfortable with calls from Prigozhin and other radical ultra-nationalists to get tougher because it makes Western leaders nervous.
Investigative journalists have noted that the Russian media have not yet stopped reporting news favorable to Wagner’s group. They believe Prigozhin still has support in Russian intelligence circles and say his repeated attacks on officials are too bold to have happened without Putin’s knowledge. Journalists believe that Putin has resorted to unorthodox techniques to rein in the generals, and Wagner’s group is instrumental in creating a military balance.
Read also: Russia reports battlefield losses