As the head of a private army with thousands of heavily armed mercenaries and criminals recruited from prison, Yevgeny Prigozhin (61) is one of the most powerful men in Russia.
The founder of the Wagner group is an old companion of Vladimir Putin (70): they are said to have met in the 1990s. Prigozhin had then just served a 13-year sentence for theft and other crimes and now ran a restaurant in Putin’s hometown, St. Petersburg.
As the Kremlin increasingly took advantage of Prigozhin’s gastronomic offerings, Prigozhin was nicknamed “Putin’s Chef”. He made millions on contracts to feed the Russian army.
Suddenly he goes to the stock market
But how loyal is Prigozhin to Putin these days? There are many indications that he is no longer merely a loyal servant of the president, but that “Putin’s cook” is doing his own thing. The businessman Prigozhin had always remained in the background. He shunned the publicity and even took legal action against reports that he was the founder of the Wagner group.
That suddenly changed in the summer of this year: first, a video leaked out – possibly by Prigozhin himself – showing him personally recruiting prisoners for the war in Ukraine and addressing them with pithy words. Then he officially admitted what everyone already knew: that he was behind the Wagner group. Since then, new videos of Prigozhin have repeatedly appeared on social media, intended to show that he is playing a leading role in Ukraine.
«Prigozhin is building a parallel structure»
It seems as if Prigozhin wants to present himself to the Russian public as an alternative to Putin, as a new strongman. And since it seems inconceivable that the weakening Putin would voluntarily give up his power, Prigozhin is apparently preparing in case he has to use his private army outside the war in Ukraine – not for the president’s purposes, but for his personal ends.
In one of its latest reports on the war in Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) states: “Prigozhin continues to rise to power and, together with the Russian armed forces, is building a military structure that could endanger Putin’s rule .”
Power but no responsibility
The fact that Prigozhin is working to further weaken Putin is also apparent from the activities of the Telegram channels associated with the Wagner group: there are criticisms not only of the insufficient supply of the mobilized, but also of the decisions of the military leadership – both whose authority of Commander-in-Chief Putin is being compromised.
According to the ISW, Prigozhin is in a comfortable position because he has no formal responsibility. “He is free to criticize those in authority without fear of anyone pointing out something for which he was specifically responsible and which he failed to achieve.”
Prigozhin and Kadyrov save their soldiers
Timothy Snyder, 53, a Yale University history professor and Ukraine expert, suspects Prigozhin is already rescuing his troops in Ukraine to prepare for an internal power struggle in Russia.
The same goes for the other prominent warlord with his own army, the Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov (46): “Both call for the intensification of the war and taunt the Russian high command in the most aggressive tone, but at the same time seem to protect their own people” , wrote Snyder in the “NZZ”.
Ukraine campaign could end in battle for Kremlin
There will come a time when the commanders of the regular Russian army will also adopt this approach. Snyder: “They have an incentive to withdraw as long as they can still command units if the military wants to continue to play a role in Russian politics or to enjoy respect in Russian society.”
This, according to Snyder, is the most likely outcome of the war in Ukraine: “The Ukrainian campaign is giving way to a power struggle in the Kremlin. In such a struggle it is useless to have armed allies in Ukraine far away that could be put to more useful use in Russia.”
In this scenario, Putin would withdraw from Ukraine for his own political survival, according to Snyder: “It can be bad for everyone involved to suffer a defeat in Ukraine, but it would be much worse to lose in Russia.” (syphilis)