Yevgeny Prigozhin (62) publishes interrogation video: Russian soldiers shot group Wagner

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People end up in jail for calling Putin’s “special operation” a “war,” for laying flowers for Ukraine, or for cautiously posting critical things online. Only one has the freedom to fool: Yevgeny Prigozhin (62).

For months, the Wagner boss has been raging on all channels against the Russian military leadership. The most recent example: Wagner’s boss had a video published through his press office. In it, Russian lieutenant Roman Wenewitin (45) speaks into a camera as a hostage with a smashed nose.

The commander of the 72nd brigade admits – perhaps not entirely voluntarily – that he gave the order to shoot a group of Wagner mercenaries. A military vehicle belonging to the Wagner group was destroyed in the attack. There were no injuries, but Russian soldiers were captured, including the first lieutenant. Wenewitin was drunk, the confession continues, and he acted out of hatred for the Wagner group.

Prigozhin calls the defense minister scum

Yevgeny Prigozhin scolded Telegram: the Russians had laid mines on the roads along which the Wagner troops wanted to withdraw from Bakhmut. The latest allegations in the dispute between the Wagner Group and the power elite around Vladimir Putin (70) are brutal.

Prigozhin never hesitates to name names. Only one always gets off in his hate speech: The boss of the Kremlin himself. For example, Prigozhin describes Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (67) and commander Valeri Gerasimov (67) as “scum” because they did not provide his mercenaries with sufficient ammunition. He calls Putin’s confidant and governor of Saint Petersburg Alexander Beglow (67) a “parasite” and in the video he has his Wagner mercenaries brutally insult Duma deputy Viktor Sobolev (73). Prigozhin sharply criticizes the Russian offensive and praises the strength of the Ukrainians. According to Pentagon leaks, Prigozhin even offered to betray Russian positions to Ukraine.

And yet: the Kremlin is silent. International observers wonder why “Putin’s cook” hasn’t yet been run over, poisoned, or thrown out of a skyscraper window like many other prominent critics.

Even a military coup could not be ruled out

2024 is presidential election in Russia. Vladimir Putin could make way for someone who would then have to end the conflict that has arisen, writes the New York Post. Putin trusts Prigozhin. This would not ban Putin to a gulag. It is not evident that he is to blame for the possible failure of the war in Ukraine, because his Wagner group fought bravely and was sabotaged by the military leadership. Since the war in Ukraine, Prigozhin has portrayed himself as a nationalist, close to the people and fighting against corruption and the establishment. That could also convince voters.

Former Secret Service officer and military blogger Igor Girkin (52) also fears a coup by the Wagner group. The fact that Prigozhin managed to win over the former Deputy Defense Minister Mikhail Mizintsev (60) and the Russian ex-commander in Ukraine Sergei Surovikin, “General Armageddon”, to the Wagner group, speaks for a planned takeover in the Kremlin Eastern Europe expert Vlad Mykhnenko of the University of Oxford told Newsweek.

“While the Wagner forces naturally undermine Russia’s monopoly on the use of force, they have so far allowed Putin to do so because of their military prowess,” Swiss military expert Markus Berni said in an interview with Blick. Former US general Mark Kimmitt explained Putin’s silence on Prigozhin on CNN with an old Russian proverb, “Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.”

Source: Blick