While his mercenaries are withdrawing from Bakhmout, the businessman continues to criticize the Russian army and the Moscow government. But his diatribes stop at certain doors.
“Stinking creatures!” It is with this insulting formula that Evguéni Prigojine, the boss of the private military company Wagner, attacked the Russian Ministry of Defense a few hours after the drone attacks which occurred in Moscow and its region, Tuesday, May 30. “Bunch of bastards! Get your ass out of those offices you’ve been placed in to protect this country!”he ordered again, quoted by the Telegram channel of Concord, one of his groups.
After the announcement, at the end of May, of the gradual withdrawal of his men from Bakhmout, in eastern Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigojine began a curious media tour across Russia, each time giving long press conferences on the war in Ukraine… Until evoking his own political ambitions. Between criticism and insults, the sulphurous exits of the businessman question his intentions.
The Russian general staff for favorite target
Whether audio messages or videos shot directly on the Ukrainian front line, Yevgeny Prigojine has to his credit an impressive series of diatribes against Russian army officers. At the beginning of February, he had criticized the “monstrous military bureaucracy” which prevented, according to him, the rapid capture of the city of Bakhmout, where his mercenaries died by the thousands. Before claiming ammunition with a lot of insults – and get them, he says.
His favorite targets: the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, as well as the Chief of Staff of the Russian army, Valery Gerasimov. Two men he regularly accused of incompetence, even suggesting that the information going up the chain of command was deliberately truncated so as not to displease President Vladimir Putin.
“We will defend our people”
Evguéni Prigojine does not hesitate to present himself and his fighters as a remedy in the face of the supposed shortcomings of the Russian army and its leaders. Saturday, he thus assured that he was ready to send his units to defend the Belgorod region, near the Ukrainian borderhit by attacks of unprecedented intensity since the start of the offensive.
“If the Ministry of Defense does not stop what is happening in the Belgorod region (…) where Russian territories are in fact being captured, then obviously we will arrive”he said in an audio message published by his press service. “We will defend our (…) Russian people and all those who live there”he added, specifying that his men would not wait for“invitation” or authorization to deploy in the region. “The only thing we will ask for is ammunition, so as not to arrive, as we say at home, bare ass in the cold.”
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Another illustration of the tensions between Yevgeni Prigojine and the Russian general staff: on Monday, the head of the Wagner group accused a Russian unit of attacking his mercenaries. “On May 17, men from the Ministry of Defense were seen carrying out roadmining [à proximité] positions of Wagner units”he wrote, according to his press service, in a report addressed to this ministry. “Wagner’s fighters who cleared mines came under fire from Ministry of Defense positions.”
Wagner’s boss also released the video of the interrogation of a “Lieutenant Colonel” of the Russian army, taken prisoner. The man, who presents himself as “Commander of the 72nd Motorized Brigade”confess “to have attacked” the mercenaries, adding that they acted “intoxicated, driven by personal animosity”.
“A speech that speaks to all Russians”
After Bakhmout, which he claims to have conquered, Yevgeny Prigojine shifted his attention to Russia itself, where he continues his information war. In recent days, he has traveled to several major cities in the country to present his latest project, called “Wagner: the second front”. A platform with vague contours, which should allow the Russians “to express their opinion without fear” and show “the real pictures” of the Ukrainian conflict, in a media landscape totally locked by power.
For the boss of Wagner, this media tour is also an opportunity to present himself as a “opinion leader”able to do “move the authorities” faced with a situation that he has been denouncing for several days. “Although people are dying in the border areas and the country is in danger, the authorities are doing nothing to prevent this and remain within their bureaucratic and corrupt framework”he loaded on the Telegram messenger.
Yevgeny Prigozhin “holds an extremely virulent discourse vis-à-vis the corruption of the elites and the incompetence of the Russian army”comments analyst Ulrich Bounat, author of the book Hybrid warfare in Ukraine, what prospects?. “What is interesting is that it is a speech that speaks to all Russians, and which is also shared by pro-war nationalists”he adds.
“A race to see who will be the most extreme”
Continuing on his “anti-system” momentum, Evguéni Prigojine is playing the subversion card against the Kremlin. “We must expect reprisals, in particular from the presidential administration”, he warned Friday, June 2 on Telegram about his mysterious project. “But it has to be done (…), otherwise we will go with the flow until history drives us into the sewers.”
Can these fiery outings allow him to access spheres of influence? “Unlike the West, Russia doesn’t really hear about him, he’s not a face put forward by the mainstream media, emphasizes Ulrich Bounat. Even within ultranationalist circles, there are tensions to obtain the most visibilityit’s always the race to see who will be the most extreme.” But with a certain “will have” obtained thanks to his commitment to Bakhmout, Evguéni Prigojine has given several press conferences in recent days to regional media.
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On May 30, in Ekaterinburg, he castigated the recent ban on Wagner recruiting in Russian penitentiaries. “They stopped giving us prisoners out of jealousy (…), they were afraid of these guys [les mercenaires de Wagner]who are 25 times more effective than army soldiers”he launched, quoted by the media E1.
The next day, in Vladivostok, he proposed radical solutions for “guarantee the success of the special military operation”, the name given in Russia to the invasion of Ukraine, as reported by the news site Primamedia. Among his recommendations: the introduction of general mobilization, which would allow, according to his calculations, “two million soldiers” to swell the ranks of the Russian forces, but also the death penalty (which is authorized, but no longer applied for 20 years in Russia) for deserters, arms manufacturers and senior officials of the Russian Defense who commit a serious misconduct.
“We must make Russia a military monster, so that there are more weapons than in North Korea.”
Yevgeny Prigojine, leader of the Wagner militiato the Russian site Primamedia
On May 31, during a stopover in Novosibirsk, where one of Wagner’s 42 recruitment centers is located, Yevgeny Prigojine also called for Russia to be placed “in a state of war” and establish martial law there. “We must stop building beautiful bridges, large theaters, everything must be focused on defense now”he urged, quoted by the media NGS.
If he takes the liberty of commenting – usually very critical – on the Russian war effort, Evguéni Prigojine however denies any desire to get into politics. “You won’t see any of this”he swept away, questioned by the E1 site on the possible creation of one “Wagner party” in the Duma (the Russian Parliament), or even on the assumption of a “Prigozhin candidate” in the presidential election. Instead, the virulent boss brings up more pressing matters for his militia and himself, such as “driving in overheated Jeeps in the middle of the Libyan desert, way madmax“.
“His red line is to directly criticize the Kremlin”
Should we believe it for all that? “Everything he says in the press and in public is a vast pile of lies, at best a political signal”slice Mathieu Boulegue, researcher specializing in Russia within the British think tank Chatham House. For the expert, Evguéni Prigojine may be more and more critical of power, it still respects certain limits. “His red line is to directly criticize the Kremlin, points out Mathieu Boulegue. He also keeps a pro-Putin position, because he knows that the thing not to do is to challenge the regime and display personal political ambitions too openly.
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However, on Saturday June 3, Evguéni Prigojine accused a certain “Kremlin Tower” to stir up rivalries between his men and the Chechen fighters, auxiliary to the Russian army in Ukraine. “These dangerous games (…) simply destroy the Russian state”he commented on Telegram, quoted by the British newspaper Guardian. But the boss of Wagner was careful not to go into details. “Prigozhin remains a businessman, who has found the best way to get rich in 21st century Russiarecalls Mathieu Boulegue. He’s carved out a piece of the war pie and is totally exploiting it, until he’s told to stop.”
For the specialist, the situation of the head of Wagner recalls a sensitive file in the recent history of Russia: that of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who became an oil billionaire after the fall of the USSR in 1991. “He too said he didn’t want to do politics, but he still came into conflict with Putin”, notes Mathieu Boulegue. In 2003, Mikhaïl Khodorkovski had been accused of fraud, during a procedure qualified as “opinion trial” by Amnesty International. Sentenced in 2005, the oligarch was then sent to the gulag in Siberia … Only to come out a decade later – and living in exile ever since.