“Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Statements on Bakhmut and Putin: Insights from Russia Expert Charlotte Flindt Pedersen”

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin (61) still has a close relationship with Vladimir Putin (70) – and sees the president as a “godfather”.

This is the opinion of Charlotte Flindt Pedersen, Russia expert and director of the Foreign Policy Association in Copenhagen.

– Prigozhin is still a valuable man for Putin. And now he wants to show that he has power and get Putin’s attention, says Flindt Pedersen to VG.

• Tuesday Prigozhin stated that there may be a revolution in Russia if the elite do not also send their children to war in Ukraine.
• – We are in a situation where we can lose the whole damn Russia, he says in the interview.
• He claims that the Wagner Group has lost more than 20,000 soldiers in the Battle of Bakhmut.
• He believes that Ukraine’s army is “one of the best in the world”.
• Prigozhin has repeatedly criticized Defense Minister Sergej Shoigu and others in the defense leadership.

Charlotte Flindt Pedersen believes that the two P’s Putin and Prigozhin still have a close relationship.

– Prigozhin’s problem is that he did not deliver in Bakhmut. Russia took a very long time to take the city. Therefore, it is now important for him to show Putin that he has power.

– Why is Prigozhin still important to Putin?

– It is important to remember that the Wagner group is still powerful, and so Prigozhin is valuable to Putin, for example with what Russia earns from gold and diamonds in Africa. Prigozhin has been Putin’s henchman to do the worst jobs.

– What does Prigozhin want to show with these statements?

– He wants to show that he is able to speak to the ordinary Russian – in contrast to, for example, Defense Minister Shoigu, Defense Chief Vitaly Gerasimov, Spy Chief Sergei Naryshkin and others.

Charlotte Flindt Pedersen believes that Prigozhin is better at assessing the situation realistically than Putin is. The Wagner boss says in the recent interview that Ukraine’s army is one of the best in the world and that Ukraine is now ready for a counter-offensive where the aim is to move the borders back to how they were.

– Prigozhin is trying to show that he is an honest man and runs an honest cause for the fatherland. He knows he is vulnerable and now wants to strengthen himself. With soldiers brought out of prisons, people realize that he is not just mixing with the elite.

– Now Prigozhin is keen to show that he has a power which means that Putin has to deal with him. He tells his story and believes that the others around Putin do not know what is going on.

– What is Putin to Prigozhin?

– Putin is the godfather. Prigozhin wants to show the president that he has power. He wants Putin’s attention.

– You don’t think he will challenge Putin?

– Prigozhin has ambitions, but I do not think that he will challenge Putin, says Charlotte Flindt Pedersen.

Peter Viggo Jakobsen at the Danish Defense Academy assesses Prigozhin’s statements militarily:

– It is not easy to be wise about Prigozhin, but he has an important point: if Russia does not get more men to the front, then they cannot achieve the goal they have set themselves of holding on to the areas they have occupied. It is hard to see that they can succeed in that without mobilizing a significant number of soldiers.

– What do you think about his statements about “the children of the elite”?

– Until now, it has probably not only been the children of the elite, but also middle-class children from Moscow and St. Petersburg have been called up to the war to a small extent. But that’s how it always is in a war – that the elite look after their children. Whether the ordinary Russian knows that it is actually so, I do not know.

– This can be compared to what it was like during the Vietman war in the USA. There, too, there was a tendency for the children of the elite to avoid going to Vietnam.

Like Charlotte Flindt Pedersen, Peter Viggo Jakobsen believes that Prigozhin is trying to position himself:

– He says that he is a man outside the elite and that he can deliver what the Russian military cannot. After all, Prigozhin has criticized the defense leadership for a long time. In that sense, there is a common thread in what he says. But I can’t see through what agenda he has, says Jakobsen.