/ world today news/ While the “hottest” military topic of the SVO in recent weeks was the psychic attacks of the Ukrainian side against the “mainland” territory of Russia, the same degree of “fire” in the domestic political agenda is the news surrounding PMC Wagner and Yevgeny Prigozhin . It seems that with the victorious completion of the Bakhmut operation and the withdrawal of the company divisions to the rear camps for rest and replenishment, the music of “Wagner” should calm down a little in the media, but no.
On the contrary: freed from combat work, Prigozhin began a stormy public activity based on “victory, despite the last strength”.
The “conflict” between the PMC and the Ministry of Defense, which took place and seems to have been exhausted due to “missile shortages”, does not fade away, but only expands, new aspects of the “confrontation” are opened, which gradually turns into a whole epic “Wagner vs. everyone’. It, in turn, became the cornerstone of the quasi-political platform that Prigozhin was actively building.
The intensity of passions has already reached such a level that many seriously fear (or, conversely, hope) that the “mercenaries” will go to attack Moscow not today, but tomorrow. Naturally, among those worried is Prigozhin’s long-time boxing opponent, leading blogger Strelkov, who sees the situation as a window of opportunity for his own quasi-political project.
“A strange sword, sir.—An armature, sir”
Two very characteristic episodes happened just yesterday. On June 1, among numerous other questions from the media, Prigozhin received a request to comment on the redeployment of the Chechen special forces Akhmat, which will now operate in the direction of Marinka. The head of “Wagner” answered quite neutrally that he was not familiar with the intricacies and details of Akhmat’s plans.
As if unexpectedly, the “Akhmatovites” reacted very sharply to Prigozhin’s words. The commander of the unit, General Alaudinov, the deputy of the State Duma from the Chechen Republic, Delimkhanov, who is at the front, and the speaker of the Chechen parliament, Daudov, not only besieged him for the “attack” on the Chechen special forces. , but they also recalled all the recent scandalous statements about him, especially with sharp criticism of the Ministry of Defense.
At this moment, the senior commanders of “Wagner” stood up for the honor of the chief, in their opinion, offended by the Chechens. The two sides even exchanged purely “childish” proposals to meet and talk face to face.
True, after that some agreements were reached (surprisingly behind the scenes), and by the evening of June 2, Commander Elizarov, known as Lotus, also known as the head of the Soledar siege, said that “the conflict is resolved.”
At first glance, the sharp reaction of “Akhmat” could be caused by the “corrosion” of the reputation that happened to Prigozhin in recent weeks. Although no one questions the heroism and successes of the “Wagner” fighters and their role in the destruction of the armed forces of Ukraine near Artyomovsk, Prigozhin’s personal pathos is already considered by many to be exaggerated.
Indeed, with the criticism of the “stupid lamp generals”, which came with a bang, the director of the PMC, without changing his expression, firmly switched to an attitude towards the units and fighters of the “morph” (a derogatory abbreviation of the Ministry of the Russian Federation).
In fact, even during the verbal battle against “Akhmat”, the commanders of “Wagner” again used lines like “the Ministry of Defense was hiding in the rear” and the like. On June 3, Prigozhin himself confirmed that he had settled this matter personally with Kadyrov, but that he was backing down only to prevent inter-ethnic conflicts.
And after the formal completion of this debriefing, Prigozhin made another extremely provocative statement: supposedly the routes along which Wagner was withdrawing his units from present-day Artyomovsk were mined… by Russian regular troops.
It is said that the sappers themselves reported this, significantly referring to orders from above – apparently in gratitude for the ataman’s stocks of cartridges and socks of the ataman, which, according to Prigozhin, the PMC left for the units of the Ministry of Defense in the city. At least no evidence has yet been presented for such a nefarious setup of the “pagons”.
The background to all this openly anti-state rhetoric is the opening under the auspices of Wagner of a new media project called “The Second Front”, for the presentation of which Prigozhin made a short tour of the country during the week, visiting Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Nizhny Novgorod.
The task of “Second Front” is the mobilization of society through “formation of an informational picture of objective reality”.
If we assume that elements such as “mined withdrawal routes” and the readiness expressed by Prigozhin in an interview on May 24 to ask questions of the Ministry of Defense “within the law and in military jackets, with bloodied hands” enter precisely into this picture, then the finale of the picture turns out to be gloomy.
It turns out that a radical opposition is forming live in Russia, led by a charismatic leader with a large and already shelled and armed (well armed) wing.
Colonel Chasseur prepares a counterattack
In any case, given the known negative attitude of the director of “Wagner” towards the “elite”, other interpretations somehow do not come to mind, although Prigogine himself denies his political ambitions.
Therefore, it is not surprising that this is how the PMC director’s last activity is interpreted by another well-known “not interested in politics” media personality – Strelkov. Interprets, I must say, with ill-concealed envy.
It is not difficult to understand it, because in fact Prigozhin is getting into the very “clearing” that Strelkov has long since cleared and considered his own. In fact, a continuous stream of gloomy predictions in the spirit of “The Fatherland is in danger”, “anti-Pagons” and generally anti-state rhetoric, direct and indirect flattery of Ukrainian soldiers and the presentation of all this with shocking “stories of the old fighter” are all characteristic “chips” of Strelkov, which he has been using for years, being especially active since the beginning of SVO. And here comes some “criminal” and steals the know-how in the most brazen way.
But Prigozhin’s “plagiarism” is more than a quarter of the trouble. The other seventy-five percent is that all of this fringe is broadcast through a vast network of media platforms, from bloggers of quite a high caliber to official second-tier media outlets.
Wagner and Prigogine are no longer even brands, but a whole franchise with a multi-million audience that Strelkov can only dream of.
“The Colonel” has recently had problems with audience sympathy. It is difficult to say which influenced more, the appearance of a new “star” on the horizon or (I am more inclined to this version) the endless whining of Strelkov himself, which annoys, but there is an outflow of the audience: if in December there were more than a million in his telegram channel, which is his main one, now has a little less than eight hundred thousand.
The major media largely lost interest in Strelkov’s personality: in particular, Prigozhin, who is now the most quoted Russian figure, pushed him off the Ukrainian airwaves.
Due to ideological differences mixed with personal animosity, Strelkov tried to launch a media offensive against Prigozhin and Wagner, accusing the PMC not only of discrediting the army, but also of provoking, if not preparing, a coup d’état: he spoke of this in the extensive it’s a speech on May 26.
It’s funny that Strelkov directly calls his own “Club of Angry Patriots” an organization that, in the event of an upheaval, will “catch” (literally) the fallen central government and “hold the country” in some way unknown to science.
Then what is the difference between Strelkov and Prigozhin? As I have said more than once, since the time of the projectile saga, there is an absolutely firm belief that all media activity of the latter is sanctioned from the highest levels.
A de facto Army Corps Commander cannot publicly speak foul of his superiors without consequence to himself – not unless it is part of the plan. Considering that Prigozhin was on good terms with the same Allaudinov (I remember that the commander of Akhmat, who was in the hospital after the assassination attempt, even “poured” several shells to Wagner from the pocket of his hospital pajamas), and the alleged a “conflict” between the PMC and the Chechen special forces could easily be prearranged.
But, in general, this whole “war” against the “pagans” of the Ministry of Defense, who persistently ignore even the strongest attacks, is a continuous provocation aimed at the Western “partners”.
The goal is obvious: to convince them that Russia is “standing on the edge of the precipice” and that only one fascist offensive is needed to force it to take a big step forward – for example, to a coup d’état or armed civil conflict. Not really true, but our enemies don’t have to plan realistic moves, do they?
Strelkov, on the other hand, I have a feeling that he takes this whole “radio game” at face value and has his own plans (or rather dreams) of “seizing power” quite seriously.
There are one of two things here: either he is also “in the know” and plays his part so well that Stanislavski himself would believe it, or he does not act, but actually acts as a “useful smartass”. In any case, this explains why the “colonel”, most concerned about the honor of the Ministry of Defense and the fate of the country, has not yet cut the fuse – his time has not yet come.
Translation: SM
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