2023-06-24 22:33:02
Yevgeny Prigozhin… From Putin’s “cook” to enemy number one
On the evening of June 23, the leader of the Wagner mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, appeared in a videotape from one of the regions of the Russian province of Belgorod, bordering the Ukrainian border, to declare rebellion once morest the Russian military leadership, specifically once morest both Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff General Valery Gerasimov, following Accusing them of bombing his forces in Ukraine, and vowing accountability.
Prigozhin neutralized Russian President Vladimir Putin in this declaration, stressing that he was not carrying out a military coup, but rather a movement aimed at achieving justice in Russia, but he quickly moved to criticize Putin himself, so that today it appears that he is fighting his last battles with the Russian official establishment, with its military and political sides. After three decades in which he was close to power, he is on a journey of ascension that sums up much of his personality.
And the Kremlin announced, on Saturday evening, that an agreement had been reached with Prigozhin, according to which he would leave for Belarus, and that the criminal case once morest him “will be dropped.”
The son of St. Petersburg (Leningrad in the days of the Soviet Union) mastered playing many roles in his life, as he moved from a thief to a prisoner, to a caterer for the Russian army, to a close associate of the Russian president, to the founder of the “Wagner” group and a performer of dirty roles for Moscow in many From countries, before his forces swelled and his influence escalated until he challenged the Russian Ministry of Defense and refused to join under its shadow, coinciding with the escalation of his criticism of it until the clash erupted and turned him into a rebel accused of betraying the homeland.
The native of St. Petersburg (Leningrad in the days of the Soviet Union) mastered playing many roles in his life
Unsurprising behavior for Prigogine
Prigozhin’s behavior on Friday was not unexpected in the literal sense of the word. He had previously presented many “surprises”, especially following his elements turned to the forefront of events, starting last September, and openly entering the battlefield in Ukraine.
It seems that the failure of the Russian forces to achieve rapid progress in Donetsk and Luhansk, and the heavy human losses, prompted the army generals, since March 2022, to increase reliance on Wagner, whose work was concentrated in African countries in particular.
Prigozhin began to appear on the fronts since April 2022, following the Russian opposition agency “Meduza” quoted sources close to him that he had decided not to participate in the fighting in Ukraine except by a special order from Putin.
Prigozhin began to bring his members deployed abroad to the front in Ukraine, and he also toured Russian prisons to persuade prisoners to join the war in return for canceling the sentences imposed on them.
Wagner fought the battles of the city of Solidar, in eastern Ukraine, and succeeded in controlling it. With the transition to the Battle of Bakhmut, Prigozhin began to surprise everyone with his constant criticism of the Russian military leadership. He accused it of treason and withholding ammunition from his forces, prompting Putin to intervene repeatedly in order to heal the rift and keep weapons flowing to the group.
And last May, Bakhmut fell into the hands of “Wagner”, so that Prigozhin announced that his men would not stay in the city and would leave it following handing it over to the Russian army, without neglecting to continue his criticism of Shoigu and Gerasimov, especially those that included insults of heavy caliber, through his platform on Telegram.
During the months when Prigozhin was criticizing the military leadership, the latter was silent, but was preparing to deal a moral blow to the founder of Wagner. On June 10, Shoigu issued an order obligating all Russian volunteer formations to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense, giving them until July 1.
According to Russian Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov, this decision will allow volunteer formations to obtain the necessary legal status, and expand the possibilities of recruiting units, whether from soldiers or volunteers. Prigozhin realized that this matter stems from two constants; Solidar and Bakhmut, and crossing the red lines in dealing with the various levels of the Russian state, angered the military leadership, which moved to curtail its influence by withdrawing its control from Wagner.
The second constant is that the Russian army needs to tighten legal control over the groups that fight alongside it, so that they do not become independent military forces at a later stage, weakening Moscow’s centralization.
Prigozhin refused to sign any contracts for his group’s fighters with the ministry
Prigozhin refused to sign any contracts for his group’s fighters with the ministry. He said in a comment that “Wagner” is already coordinating its actions with the commanders of the units of the Russian armed forces, expressing his “regret” that most of the Russian military units do not have the competence of its fighters, attributing this to the fact that Shoigu cannot usually manage military formations. More important, however, is his refusal to heed Putin’s insistence that such contracts be signed.
In fact, what exacerbated Prigozhin’s internal problems were his differences with Sergei Kirenenko, the first deputy of the presidential administration in the Kremlin and responsible for the domestic policy file, as a result of his siding with the governor of the Leningrad region, Alexander Beglov, whom Prigozhin accuses of being hostile to him and restricting his work.
It was clear following June 10 that a clash was inevitable between the Russian military leadership and Prigozhin, who found himself besieged by his opponents in the circle surrounding Putin, so a move had to be taken, especially since Prigozhin had no political future, according to the Russian political track, because Putin would remain a presidential candidate. In the 2024 elections, unless surprising developments occur. Also, the Russian president will not agree to grant Prigozhin a political position that would allow him to grow his influence more.
And on June 20, the Russian State Duma adopted a law according to which contract soldiers and mobilizers who went to fight in Ukraine can be exempted from criminal liability for crimes of small and medium severity. The adoption of the law constituted an official acknowledgment of the success of the “Wagner” experiment in recruiting prisoners.
However, the deterioration of the relationship between the Ministry of Defense and Prigozhin accelerated, so that differences exploded in an unprecedented way since Friday, before Putin announced Russian President Vladimir Putin’s pledge to crush what he described as armed rebellion, to write an end to the relationship that brought the two men together over the past three decades.
St. Petersburg years
Prigozhin was born in Saint Petersburg on June 1, 1961, the same city where Putin is from. Prigozhin had a difficult childhood and adolescence, with the early death of his father. He did not succeed in achieving his dream of becoming a professional skier. Prigozhin practiced theft, so he committed a series of pickpocketing and assault crimes, which imprisoned him for 9 years in 1981.
In 1990 he was released, to begin a new journey, by working with his mother to provide “hot dogs” in the streets, before the dissolution of the Soviet Union led to the emergence of voids on several levels, which Prigozhin exploited to his advantage, so he owned a stake in a chain of stores, before he decided to open restaurant in 1995.
His step was not natural in the traditional sense. In Russia, which was born from the womb of the Soviet Union, the oligarchs, especially in Moscow and St. Petersburg, controlled most business sectors, at low prices, and therefore Prigozhin was not far from this atmosphere.
During this period, Putin was the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, who introduced him to Prigozhin’s Old Customs House restaurant. The two men got to know each other, especially when Putin watched Prigozhin’s movement and his dealings with his employees, as well as his obsession with cleanliness.
Meanwhile, Sobchak was praising Prigozhin in front of Putin, and the upward relationship began to grow between the two men, until Putin’s accession to the Russian presidency, which helped Prigozhin obtain contracts to feed the Russian army. Hence his nickname “Putin’s Chef”.
Prigozhin gradually gained Putin’s confidence, but he was not satisfied with the role of “the cook”, as he soon moved on to playing other roles behind the scenes that began to unfold successively in recent years through the exposure of his role in founding and leading the Wagner Group.
The Guardian: Prigozhin is ruthless and obedient to his superiors, but tyrannical to his followers
On Saturday, the British newspaper, The Guardian, quoted a number of those who accompanied Prigozhin, who asked not to be identified, in order to speak freely.
She considered him a person who “would not hesitate to get what he wanted.” It was remarkable that Prigozhin’s acquaintances mentioned to the newspaper that the elements of money and power not only motivate Prigozhin, but also “the belief that he is fighting corrupt elites on behalf of the common man, and the desire to crush his competitors.”
It is a path that has made many enemies, such as former business partners who feel duped, army generals he has criticized as bureaucrats, and senior security officials who fear he has ambitions to seize political power. However, what enabled him to “survive” was that he retained the support of his most important supporter, Putin, throughout the past period.
The Guardian stated that Prigozhin’s rise to the military arena began in the summer of 2014, that is, following Russia annexed the Ukrainian Crimea by force, and supported Ukrainian separatists in the east.
The newspaper reported that a group of senior Russian officials met at the Defense Ministry headquarters in Moscow to meet Prigozhin. The meeting centered on giving him land to train “volunteers” who would not have formal links with the Russian army, and might be used to fight Russia’s “dirty” wars.
Prigozhin’s manner was disliked by many in the ministry, but he explained that “the orders come from the Pope,” using Putin’s title to emphasize his closeness to him. “At the time, I didn’t think much regarding the project,” said a former high-ranking official in the Russian Defense Ministry who was briefed on the discussions.
Indeed, the decisions made on that day would have an enormous impact on Russian foreign policy and its military adventures in the years to follow. Prigozhin’s army of contract fighters will be known as the Wagner Group and will operate in Ukraine, Syria and several African countries.
The turning point
According to The Guardian, the turning point in the relationship between Prigozhin and the Russian leadership was the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Wagner’s involvement in the battles of Solidar and Bakhmut led to friction with the Russian military leadership, especially since in Libya, Syria, Sudan, Mali, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Congo and other countries in which the group was deployed, it was fighting without the need for coordination with the Russian army.
The independence of its work in those countries led to its collision with the Russian army on Ukrainian soil. The newspaper stated that “Wagner” had become a large force, with the number of its elements reaching regarding 50,000, according to Western intelligence estimates, including tens of thousands of former prisoners who were recruited from prisons across Russia.
Prigozhin’s relationship with Putin allowed the former to bypass the loss of more than a hundred personnel during their attempt to control oil wells belonging to the Kurds in eastern Syria in 2018. At that time, the Americans watched the “Wagner” elements advancing towards the wells, and consulted with the Russians, whether they were They move by official orders. The Russian leaders denied this, so the Americans bombed the “Wagner” group, and the case was closed.
Not only did the “Wagner” operatives attend Syria, but they also played a role in interfering in the 2016 US presidential elections, with Prigozhin’s own admission, indicating that the group’s work went beyond field military operations to cyber wars.
According to Fiona Hill, the former official in charge of Russian policy at the US National Security Council, Putin’s attraction of Prigozhin to his side over the past period was an attempt to appear strong. On June 12, The Economist quoted Hill as saying that when she was researching Putin’s biography years ago, she became suspicious of all the stories that make up the Russian leader’s personal traits, such as his toughness as a child and the KGB’s assessment of his personality as ” His sense of danger is minimal,” Putin himself said.
“Sometimes I wonder how powerful Putin really is,” she told the newspaper. She concluded her opinion by saying: “Maybe Prigozhin suspects that his boss is not as strong as he pretends to be. He may look at Putin and ask himself: Why not me?”
In 2015, in one of his lectures, Putin said: “I learned on the streets of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) that if a fight is inevitable, strike first.” And Prigozhin, also from Leningrad, on Friday night delivered the first blow.
(The New Arab)
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