2023-08-24 20:00:29
Innsbruck (OTS) – The death of mercenary leader Prigozhin should be taken as a warning in Russia. Kremlin boss Putin has to use more and more violence to stay in power.
Why the private jet crashed, in which, according to official information, mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and the rest of the leadership of his group Wagner were sitting, may not come to light any time soon. But it is noteworthy that observers at home and abroad immediately pointed to Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. He’s easily credited with assassinating a disgraced former vassal. And that says a lot regarding the Kremlin boss and his rule over Russia.
In the West, many cling to the narrative of Putin’s transformation from serious statesman to delusional warlord. It also serves to justify the previous close contacts. But the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya had already shown in her 2004 book “In Putin’s Russia” the methods Putin uses to subjugate his compatriots. She was shot two years later.
Conditions have continued to deteriorate since then. At least since the attack on Ukraine, the Russian leadership has been working to eliminate the last remnants of Russian civil society.
But even that is evidently no longer enough to secure Putin’s rule. The greatest threat to the Kremlin and Putin’s closest circle does not come from opponents of the war, but from supporters of the war. After a year and a half of death, destruction and deprivation, including for many Russians, the Kremlin is far from achieving its goals in Ukraine. With his public tirades and the march of his mercenaries on Moscow, Prigozhin had made himself the front man of the dissatisfied. His spectacular death and the recent purges in the military should be taken as a warning in Russia not to get in the way of the interests of the leadership around Putin.
At first glance, the head of the Kremlin looks like someone who has cleaned up following a period of weakness and taken control once more. The second look reveals abysses. Political options are dwindling for those who have to use more and more violence to stay in power. Putin has long been driven by his own wrong decisions, as the example of Prigozhin shows. The militaristic foreign policy made the mercenary leader so big that he dared to openly challenge the Kremlin.
Putin has led his country into a dead end from which he can no longer get out without losing face and presumably also power. Even a plane crash cannot solve this problem.
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