PRIGOJIN WAGNER. The leader of the paramilitary group Wagner, Evgeni Prigojine, announced the withdrawal of his men to their camps in order to avoid a bloodbath. This Saturday, June 24, 2023, he entered into open rebellion against the Russian military government. Who is this 62-year-old man at the head of the Russian private army?
The leader of the Russian paramilitary organization Wagner, Evgeni Prigozhin, announced the withdrawal of his troops from Russia. In a voice post on Telegram, he congratulated himself on not having “shed a single drop of our fighters’ blood”. He goes on to explain that the time has come “when blood can be shed. Therefore, aware of the responsibility of one of the sides in the Russian bloodshed, we turn back with our convoys and return in the field camps according to the established plan”. Prigojine had engaged in an open war against the Russian military leaders, this Saturday, June 24, 2023. The leader of Wagner is known for his operations in various countries, in particular in Ukraine where the war has been raging since February 2022.
In a series of messages published between Friday June 23 and Saturday June 24, 2023, the head of Wagner accused the Russian military government of being behind the death of many of his soldiers, targeted by strikes within the camps themselves. of Wagner, accusations denied in the wake of the Russian army. Prigojine demanded the arrest of the Russian military leaders and assured that he would go “all the way”, even if it meant heading towards Moscow.
Who is Yevgeny Prigozhin, the man giving Vladimir Putin a hard time? A former delinquent, sentenced to twelve years in prison for “robbery” and “fraud” in the 1980s, he quickly became close to Vladimir Putin after his release. He gets his nickname “Putin’s cook” for having previously worked in the restaurant business and for being the man of the Russian president’s dirty deeds. He met Vladimir Putin in 2001, when the latter would have chosen his restaurant in Saint Petersburg for his meeting with French President Jacques Chirac. From then on, the two men are close and Prigozhin, who has become an influential oligarch, is gradually transformed into a man of the shadows who will carry out the most shameful tasks in the Kremlin.
He is now known for being the head of the Wagner group, which he created in 2014. Although he preferred to remain in the shadows for a long time, Prigojine claims all his actions since the start of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia on February 24, 2022, and has become very active on Telegram where Wagner broadcasts his propaganda non-stop. The secret private army thus quickly became official and its leader inaugurated the opening of an office in Saint Petersburg, a few months after the start of the conflict.
This new media visibility, combined with the difficulties of the Russian army on the Ukrainian front, could be a sign of its desire to distance itself from Vladimir Putin. “As long as he is simply perceived as an executor of Vladimir Putin, the fate of the latter will also be his,” explained before June 24 Jeff Hawn, specialist in security issues in Russia and external consultant for an American research center in geopolitics, to France 24. A defeat of Putin in Ukraine would therefore be associated with him and his recent conflicts with the Russian general staff, until the escalation of June 24, were also signs of a certain distancing then that some saw him as a possible strongman of a future Russia without Putin.
In this context of the beginning of the conflict against Moscow, the leader of Wagner was careful not to attack Vladimir Putin in a direct way. His accusations are, for the moment, aimed at the chiefs of staff and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu against whom he had already focused criticism. The rebellion he has been leading since Saturday, however, seems to be a turning point and any backtracking seems compromised. Especially since the Russian president announced Saturday, May 24 at the end of the morning that the “treason” of his private army would lead to an “inevitable punishment”.
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s future looks dim unless his coup truly shakes Russian power… “There is no Russian state, no political chain of command. Who will obey? If Prigozhin is still alive and free in 24 hours there will be a new reality in Russia”, noted last night the former world chess champion and democratic opponent Gary Kasparov on his Twitter account.
