The “conqueror of Bakhmut», as he now seems to want to paint himself in the eyes of the Russians, has decided in the last few hours to slightly tone down his tone towards the Army and the Minister of Defence. Especially because Yevgeny Prigozhin wants to withdraw his militiamen from the destroyed city and entrust its control to the regular Armed Forces within a few days. “Because he knows that otherwise he would be torn apart,” say the Ukrainians. Because Wagner’s men must “rest in the rear” while awaiting new difficult assignments, according to the version of the former restaurateur, former robber and thief who became indomitable fighter on behalf of Vladimir Putin.
And certainly having handed the lord of the Kremlin the only significant victory on the field for many months now increases his quotations enormously, even if in Moscow there are probably more those who would like to take him out than those who love him. But Prigozhin and the private army for which the name of the great German musician was chosen have for some time now been an essential tool in Vladimir Vladimirovich’s strategy of power and conquest. Which he fully understood inadequacy of the official structures and for this reason he tolerates going outside Prigozhin’s lines, even when he speaks, obviously referring to him, of a “happy grandfather convinced that everything is fine”. And he wonders, «purely hypothetically», if it will not then come out that «this grandfather is a co… licensed».
The fact is that for many years, at least since 2014, Prigozhin has been bringing home results, with absolutely unorthodox methods that the other lieutenants of the Tsar cannot even imagine.
Before the birth of the private militia, created by the former lieutenant colonel of the GRU (the military espionage service) Dmitry Utkin (Wagner was his nom de guerre) and used in the invasion of the Crimea and in the Donbass. Then the initiatives, still partially underway, in various African countries, above all the Central African Republic and Libya, as well as in Syria.
Also from Prigozhin is the idea of setting up the so-called troll factory in St. Petersburg. A building in which they worked dozens of computer experts employed to spread false news and to steer internet debates in a certain way in order to influence the 2016 American elections. A precious man, even if difficult to keep on a leash, so much so that in the Russian capital there are those who speculate that Prigozhin may have political ambitionsperhaps in contrast with those of Putin himself.
Concern that however the president does not seem to nurture, sure of his long-term strategy based on pitting the factions that surround him against each other. The two met in a restaurant of the Baltic city when in 2000 the new president arrived at Prigozhin (a floating boat on the Neva) together with the then Japanese premier Yoshiro Mori. It was the man who has since been known as “Putin’s cook” who personally served the two illustrious guests.
The Tsar appreciated it and allowed the restaurateur to get rich by making him assign food supplies for various state apparatuses, including the Armed Forces.
And to think that Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin certainly did not start his adult life well in what was then Leningrad. In 1979, just turned 18, he received his first suspended sentence for theft. Two years later he got twelve years for robbery and burglary. He only came out of prison in 1990, shortly before the dissolution of the USSR. His rebellious mind and habit of unconventional thinking quickly brought him success in that extremely turbulent period. He started selling hot dogs with a cart placed under his parents’ house and the business (as they said at the time) it went so well that the mother “couldn’t count the bundles of rubles that accumulated”, as he said himself.
Then a grocery store; then a chain of supermarkets and the first casinos in the city that had just gone back to being called St. Petersburg. Until the meeting with Putin in his elite restaurant.