Long before Yevgeny V. Prigozhin seized a major Russian military center and ordered an armed march into Moscow, posing an astonishing and dramatic threat to President Vladimir V. Putin, the mercenary tycoon turned food supplier, has lost his own war.
Mr. Prigozhin’s private army was cast aside. His lucrative government contracts were threatened. The commander he most admired in the Russian army was sacked as the top general overseeing Ukraine. And he lost his most important source of fighter recruitment: Russian prisons.
Then, on June 13, his only hope of a last-minute intervention to avoid a bitter defeat in his protracted power struggle with Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu was dissipated.
Putin openly sided with Prigozhin confirmed that all irregular units participating in the war in Ukraine will have to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense. That includes Mr. Prigozhin’s private military company, Wagner.
Now, the mercenary leader will have to submit to Mr. Shoigu, a peerless political survivor in modern Russia and a sworn enemy of Mr. Prigozhin.
“This has to be done,” Putin told a group of government-friendly war correspondents in the Kremlin. “It has to be done as soon as possible.”
What happened next shocked the world: Mr. Prigozhin launched an armed uprising that he insisted was not intended to bring down Putin but to overthrow the Kremlin’s military leadership.
The mutiny, while short-lived, has been seen by many as an ominous political harbinger of Putin’s leadership, one that could foreshadow more instability as the Russian president moves on. his costly war.
But it’s also the personal story of an unruly and fickle free lord who makes an emotional final attempt to win by force in one of the most extraordinary power struggles. Russia’s most common in recent memory.
Many of Russia’s powerful figures have departed after failing in factional battles during Putin’s 23 years as Russia’s leader, ending up in exile, prison or incognito.
But with his rebellious weekend, Mr. Prigozhin chose a different path, allowing his anguish and anger to come out for the world to see as he performed actions only available to a man with a national loudspeaker — and a private army well equipped, full of suffering.
“Prigozhin’s rebellion was not a power struggle or an attempt to take over the Kremlin,” Tatyana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Center for Eurasia, wrote in an analysis. about events. “It springs from a feeling of despair; Prigozhin is forced out of Ukraine and finds himself unable to maintain Wagner as he once was, while the state apparatus is turning against him.
“On top of that,” she added, “Putin ignored him and openly supported his most dangerous enemies.”
Mr. Prigozhin built a sizable financial and military empire. But as his political defiance grows, cash flows from the Defense Department and other government contracts are in danger of drying up. And he resented the prospect of having to take orders from people he deemed incompetent.
However, when Mr. Putin denounced his actions on Saturday as treason, Mr. Prigozhin appeared to have let his guard down, unprepared to become a true revolutionary or continue his march into the Kremlin. he realized that it would almost certainly end in failure, Ms. Stanovaya wrote.
And so, when Mr. Prigozhin was offered an opportunity to end the crisis by withdrawing his troops, he took it.
“The Prigozhin mutiny was ultimately an act of desperation by a cornered man,” said Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at Virginia-based research group CNA. “His options are narrowing as his bitter disputes intensify.”
Over the years, with his ties to Putin and the Kremlin, Prigozhin has been able to win lucrative contracts to feed Moscow’s school system and Russian military bases, accumulating amassed profits. get a large fortune. At the same time, he engages in foreign adventurism through Wagner in line with the Kremlin, advancing Moscow’s – and his own – goals in the Middle East and Africa, where his warriors I was accused of indiscriminate murder and atrocities.
He also shepherds the Internet Research Agency, the infamous troll farm in St. Petersburg interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.
Mr. Prigozhin keeps his activities so secret that he has long denied any connection to Wagner and has even sued the Russian media for reporting on his links to the group.
That all changed last year with the all-out invasion of Ukraine.
In September, Mr. Prigozhin to the community for the first time as the man behind Wagner.
Less than two weeks later, Putin appointed General Sergei Surovikin to lead the war effort in Ukraine, a boon. for the mercenary leader who worked with the general in Syria. Prigozhin described the new leader as a legendary figure and the most capable commander in the Russian army.
Prigozhin’s stature is also growing, as his fighters appear to be making progress in the protracted battle in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, while the Russian army has little to show for it. . Russian commentators have given positive coverage of the group of mercenaries, and a glass tower in St. Petersburg was renamed the Wagner Center. Recruitment posters for the costume were posted around the country.
But earlier this year, Prigozhin’s opponents in the Defense Ministry began to reassert their authority.
In January, Mr. Putin appointed General Valery V. Gerasimov, replacing General Surovikin as the top commander of operations in Ukraine. Mr. Prigozhin frequently belittles General Gerasimov in his Telegram audio messages, implying that he is a bureaucrat of the kind who can oppress regular soldiers with bureaucracy.
The hostility seems to stem from Moscow’s intervention in the Syrian civil war, as Wagner and Russian regular soldiers sometimes clash as they vie for resources and spoils, according to published memoirs. copies of two Wagner veterans. Prigozhin himself went public about these tensions in Syria last year.
In February, Mr. Prigozhin acknowledged that access to Russian prisons for recruits had been severed. The Ministry of Defense then began recruiting prisoners there, adopting Prigozhin’s tactics.
Tensions between Wagner and the Russian military – long hinted at by Russian military bloggers – have flared up. At the end of February, Mr. Prigozhin publicly accused Mr Shoigu and General Gerasimov of treason, claiming that they deliberately withheld ammunition and supplies from Wagner to destroy it.
In late February, Putin tried to settle the feud by summoning Prigozhin and Shoigu to a meeting, according to reports. intelligence document leak .
But the competition will only escalate. No longer able to recruit prisoners, according to Ukrainian and Western officials, Wagner was forced to increasingly rely on a limited supply of skilled veteran fighters to continue waging the battle in Bakhmut.
Isolated from the center of Moscow power, Mr. Prigozhin increasingly turned to his bully podium: social media. His messages were also much more political as he began to appeal directly to the Russian people. He began to voice his criticism that, in a country where laws prohibit discrediting the armed forces, few others dare.
What was once the sharp gag of Russian brass has over time turned into frequent molasses eruptions.
“You stinking beasts, what are you doing? You are pig!” he said in an audio recording at the end of May. “Get your ass out of your office, which you have been given to protect this country.”
He went on to criticize Russia’s defense leadership for “sitting on their big ass smeared with expensive cream” and said the Russian people have every right to question them. He posted gruesome images of Wagner soldiers being killed in action. He gave an ultimatum to withdraw his troops from Bakhmut. He even took what many saw as a slap on Mr Putin without naming him, with an allusion to a “grandfather” who could be “a complete idiot”.
Kremlinists were perplexed as to why Mr. Putin did not push Mr. Wagner aside, or intervene and contain him; Some analysts argue that he favors competing factions operating beneath him, with neither side gaining too much power. Others wondered if the Russian leader had become too isolated to deal with the problem or simply did not have enough control.
Mr. Prigozhin’s forces captured Bakhmut at the end of May and soon left the battlefield, accusing the Russian army of exploiting the path they had taken from and capturing a Russian lieutenant colonel shortly on the way out. retreat. That leaves the new Mr. Prigozhin vulnerable. Wagner is no longer needed to end a battle that has been unleashed by the Russian media.
By June, his isolation became apparent.
Mr. Prigozhin signaled a rift with the Defense Ministry over military food contracts that have helped fuel his wealth and influence for more than a decade. In a public letter to Shoigu dated June 6, Prigozhin said the food he has supplied to Russian military bases and agencies since 2006 totals 147 billion rubles. – $1.74 billion – an unverifiable number. Now, he complains, “high-level people” are trying to force him to accept their affiliated companies as his suppliers. He also said a new system of “loyal suppliers” threatened his cost structure and could deal a blow to his business’ reputation.
His despair seemed to be growing.
On June 10, one of Shoigu’s deputies announced that all combat units outside the official ranks of the Russian army would need to sign a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry by July 1. .
The original Mr. Prigozhin denied, but then Putin backs Shoigu’s plan. In the days that followed, Mr Prigozhin published a number of audio and video messages showing what appeared to be an attempt to reach an agreement on his terms.
In a video, published on June 16, he shows himself delivering a “contract” to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, but a receptionist behind a booth with cages quickly closes. book in front of him.
In the days leading up to Saturday’s uprising, Mr. Prigozhin began to express his feelings of resignation, saying that none of the problems plaguing the Russian military would be fixed. He also spoke about the country’s rise, saying that Mr. Shoigu should be executed and suggesting that the relatives of those killed in the war would exact revenge on incompetent officials.
“Their mothers, wives, children will come and devour them when the time comes,” he said in a June 6 video interview, hinting that there could be a “popular uprising.” .”
He added, “I can tell you, honestly, I think we only have about two to three months before the execution.”
