Why Prigozhin Makes Roger Koeppel And Tucker Carlson Look Old Why Prigoschin Makes Roger Koeppel And Tucker Carlson Look Old

Apart from a few misguided old Stalinists, Vladimir Putin is mostly worshiped by representatives of the extreme political fringe. Be it AfD or Front National, or Roger Köppel or Tucker Carlson, they all sing praises to the Russian president, praise him as a wise statesman and defend his horrendous and illegal offensive war against Ukraine.

Another core concern of right-wing populists is hate speech against a supposed elite. “Woke and gender madness” are denounced and there is constant whining that a red-and-green urban elite wants to spoil the little man’s car, force healthy food on his eyes and generally rob him of the joy of life. You can’t do that with a Putin, they assure you – he still knows when a man is a man.

And now this: the so-called putschist Prigozhin shows Putin what a populist rake is. He denounces the Russian elite, the oligarchs who sip champagne and oysters while soldiers at the front don’t get enough ammunition or enough food. He railed against incompetent and corrupt generals, he even questioned the legitimacy of the “military special operation”: according to Prigozhin, the real reason for the war was not the Ukrainian Nazis or the eastward expansion of NATO, but greed and incompetence of the elite. in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

Prigozhin is not so easily brushed aside. No one has caused the Ukrainian soldiers more suffering than his Wagner group. Unlike Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valeri Gerasimov, he has regularly been seen at the front and can therefore credibly pose as a representative of the little man.

Unlike Putin’s liberal critics, Prigozhin delivers his message to the male in question. That is why the Wagner boss was able to carry out his operetta coup unimpeded for a surprisingly long time. “The police did not intervene. People just watched. No one spontaneously rushed to help the government,” Boris Kagalitsky told the Washington Post. Kagalitsky lives in Moscow and was a well-known dissident in the USSR.

Although he himself belonged to the elite until recently, Prigozhin knows how to play the elite card against Putin. Ordinary Russians avoid politics and seek their fortune in private life. But various sources report that discontent is spreading among the population. “Prigozhin’s rebellion has exposed an acute weakness of the Putin regime: its contempt for the little man,” write Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage in the Foreign Affairs magazine.

In an effort to keep the urban elite of Moscow and St. Petersburg out of the war, Putin has placed the greatest burden on the rural poor. Prigozhin now presents himself as the advocate of those same men, who often have no idea why and for what they fight and die in Ukraine. “If Putin’s contempt and the anger of the Russian soldiers unite, the Kremlin will be in serious trouble, even if there is no sign of a second coup,” Fix/Kimmage said.

Meanwhile, the elite in Moscow and St. Petersburg are rallying around the president, at least at first. The rugged ex-con Prigozhin has no prestige in these circles. To avoid a repeat of such a coup, Putin will continue to tighten the screw of repression. Andrei Kolesnikov, a leading expert on Russia, told the Washington Post: “Putin’s desire to continue the war will not abate either. While the elite realize that the system is weakened and alternatives have become possible, they will consolidate around Putin, at the same time fearful and suspicious of him.”

But the coup in Prigozhin will also leave its mark on the elite. Russia expert Thomas Graham explains in the Wall Street Journal: “To maintain the trust of the elite, any Russian president must be able to do three things at once: protect them from outside enemies, protect them from the Russian people, and protect them from herself.”

Putin currently fails to meet two of these three criteria. His war against Ukraine is going badly and he clearly has no control over the internal conflicts within the elite. The danger that he will also be dropped by the elite has therefore increased enormously since last weekend.

Prigozhin’s populism is, of course, pure window dressing. The man is not only a vicious nationalist, he is also a billionaire who has long benefited from the Putin system. It is no coincidence that the president speaks of a “stab in the back”. Given Prigozhin’s popularity, he allowed him to be deported to Belarus undisturbed, at least for the time being. However, it is not recommended to take out life insurance with him.