Yevgeny Prigozhin is one of the very few people in Russia who can afford to criticize the Russian Army General Staff. But it is clear that it is impossible to do this without a reliable “roof”.
Now for Russia, Prigogine is no longer just a man who manages mercenaries – his figure is much more weighty. Ivan Stupak, a former SBU officer and expert of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, spoke about this on air on Channel 24.
The conflict between Shoigu and Prigozhin
Yevgeny Prigozhin has criminal experience, he had served a long time for various crimes even earlier. Then he became friends with Vladimir Putin, was a supplier of food for the Russian army and received an order to create the Wagner PMC. Who imposed? The Kovalchuk brothers are the brothers closest to Vladimir Putin. Perhaps even more so than the Rottenberg brothers, who built the Crimean bridge and once went to judo with Putin, – Ivan Stupak notes.
He is convinced that Yevgeny Prigozhin now enjoys the protection of the Kovalchuk brothers. After all, because of Putin's sanction, they entrusted him to lead a private army.
“He asks people, they give him prisoners, he asks for equipment – they give tanks. This allowed him to straighten his shoulders. Then he began to criticize first Shoigu, and then the governor of St. Petersburg Beglov,” recalled the ex-SBU officer.
< p> So, he explains, Prigogine now has important levers of influence. However, this criticism, in particular on Shoigu, begins to work against him.
Therefore, the Russian army stops giving them shells. They give, but supply problems begin. Thus, the Russian army is trying to blow up the base of Prigozhin's base. – Stupak said.
The Russian Ministry of Defense hopes that in this way Prigozhin will bury himself in this war as soon as possible and lose the trust of Mikhail Kovalchuk. Hence, all its influence.
How the conflict will end for Russia
Yevgeny Prigozhin is trying to gain political muscle and recognition, but by doing so he creates a counterforce around him. First of all, we are talking about the Russian military command.
But you need to understand that even the “reindeer herder” Shoigu and the not very smart Gerasimov managed to stay in power for so many years. If Shoigu was stupid, he wouldn’t have lasted so long,” the specialist emphasizes.
Therefore, the Russian Defense Minister understands perfectly well how to deal with Putin, how to remove competitors. In addition, Russia still has the FSB, the National Guard, and intelligence officers who consider themselves an even greater elite than the army. And these people find it humiliating to sit at the table with a former convict.
“I think this will have very long-term consequences for Russia in terms of its stability. First of all, all these strife play in favor of Ukraine. The more they understand between themselves, the more they are distracted from the front,” Ivan Stupak explained.
Conflicts involving Prigozhin
- The last such conflict took place literally recently. A group of Russian military men, who introduced themselves as gunners from the Wagner PMC, accused the Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov that he was not able to arrange logistics
- They were supported by the PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin himself. He refuted Russian propaganda claims that the videos were “Ukrainian nationalists in disguise.”
- He also urged armchair generals to hear about the problems of Russian mercenaries on the front lines. This is not the first such case. Prigogine has previously been an active critic of Gerasimov and Shoigu.
