Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, a Russian private mercenary company (PMC), asks Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to withdraw troops from Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine. 2023.3.3 AP Yonhap News
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, a Russian private mercenary company (PMC), announced on the 11th (local time) that he would run for the presidency of Ukraine in 2024. However, considering the recent situation, the prevailing analysis is that it is not something that can be accepted as it is.
On this day, Prigozhin delivered a Telegram video message from Bakhmut, a fierce battleground in eastern Ukraine.
Prigogine, who visited a high-rise building in Bahmut, pointed to a building with smoke rising, saying that troops belonging to the Wagner Group had approached the administrative center of Bahmut. Prigozin described the building as “the administrative office of Bahmut” and “only 1.2 km from here.”
At the same time, he made an unexpected political announcement.
“I have decided to run for the Ukrainian presidential election in 2024,” said Prigozhin, declaring that he would “compete with the incumbent Volodymyr Zelensky and his predecessor Petro Poroshenko.”
“If I get elected, everything will be fine. There will be no need for extra ammunition,” he added.
Prigozhin’s declaration of running for the Ukrainian presidency is difficult to interpret literally. At the end of the declaration of running, his words that “extra ammunition will not be needed” contain a hidden intention.
Previously, on the 9th, Prigozhin said that he had been blocked from all government communication channels, including the Russian Ministry of Defense, because of his request to provide more ammunition to the Wagner Group troops. He pointed out that the Wagner group is leading the Bahmut battle, but the chronic supply shortage has not been resolved.
Last month, Prigozhin claimed that some Russian defense officials refused to provide material support to the Wagner group because of personal animosity towards him.
In fact, it is known that the Russian military’s procurement of ammunition is suffering due to the decrease in weapons and munitions production capacity due to Western sanctions and the personnel backlog of the Russian military leadership.
In this context, it is reasonable to interpret Prigozhin’s declaration of running for the presidency of Ukraine as an oblique reference to the ammunition shortage.
One question still remains unanswered. Why did Prigozhin decide to run for the Ukrainian presidential election, not Russia? A clue can be found in the interpretation of Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.
● Why did you declare your candidacy for the Ukrainian presidential election and not the Russian one?
Gerashchenko shared Prigozhin’s declaration of running for the presidency and analyzed that it was “to divert attention from inside Russia to the political ambitions of dreaming of a successor to Putin (Russian president).”
Prigozhin, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest aides, is famous for his political ambitions. The Russian political world is already forming a ‘patriotic conservative’ group that is critical of elite bureaucrats.
After the war, Prigozhin led the Wagner group at the Bakhmut battleground and criticized the Russian regular army. He also pointed out, “If we conquer internal bureaucracy and corruption, we can defeat Ukraine and NATO.”
Regarding this, the US CNN broadcast said, “Prigogine is laughing at the incompetent regular army and packaging himself as a true patriot. The highest bureaucrat he had in mind was Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu,” he analyzed. The New York Times (NYT) also diagnosed that “Prigozine is trying to become the Minister of Defense.”
Some speculated that Prigozin might create a new party with far-right nationalist tendencies. Rumors circulated that he would run instead of President Putin in the 2024 Russian presidential election.
An American journalist born in Russia, Mikhail Zygar, even raised the allegation of a power struggle between President Putin and Prigozhin. Zygar argued in a January NYT article that President Putin replaced the military leadership as a way to check Prigozhin, whose popularity has skyrocketed as a “patriot.”
Amidst rumors surrounding his entry into politics, Prigozhin appears to have used his declaration of a run for the Ukrainian presidency as a way to silence public opinion and ease friction with Russian high-ranking officials.
Prigogine’s statement, “If you listen to the people around you, it’s clear that I have political ambitions,” is also interpreted as an intention to shift responsibility to ‘unwillingness’ rather than ‘voluntarily’.
In this regard, an anonymous Russian expert diagnosed that “apart from Prigozhin’s political ambitions, Prigozhin’s power struggles with President Putin are absurd.” At the same time, he pointed out that skepticism that President Putin is only using Prigozhin to scare Russian elite officials is not easy.
Reporter Kwon Yoon-hee