Yevgeny Prigozhin is a disinformation artist whose failed rebellion was marked by a burst of radical honesty.
THE INTERCEPT
July 1 2023
ONE OF THE most subversive things that Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin did during his brief rebellion last weekend was to tell the truth.
Prigozhin is a pathological liar, a professional disinformation artist who was indicted in the United States in connection with the internet troll farm he ran, which was at the forefront of Russian efforts to intervene in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Donald Trump win.
But as the mercenary boss began his mutiny in late June, he experienced a brief and surprising bout of honesty when he launched into an online tirade against what he said were the lies used by Moscow to justify the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine. His comments were so candid and off-message for a Russian leader that it seemed as if someone had mistakenly handed him a speech meant for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Related
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Coup Targets Putin and His “Oligarchic Clan”
The invasion was nothing more than a massive land grab by the Russian oligarchy, Prigozhin charged, designed to enrich the country’s powerful elites while poor Russians served as cannon fodder. Russian claims that a Nazi regime in Ukraine, backed by NATO, was about to attack Russia were lies, Prigozhin said. The war was started by the Russian oligarchy to benefit themselves and gain power. In his rant, Prigozhin did not criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin by name, focusing instead on the broader Russian elite, and specifically on his personal enemy Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
“The Ministry of Defense is trying to deceive the public and the president and spin the story that there were insane levels of aggression from the Ukrainian side and that they were going to attack us together with the whole NATO bloc,” Prigozhin said on his Telegram channel on June 23. The truth, he said, was that “there was nothing extraordinary happening on the eve of February 24,” the day last year when Russian invaded. Ukraine was not planning any kind of attack against Russia, he added.
Russia’s invasion “was started for a completely different reason,” Prigozhin said. “What was the war for? The war was needed for Shoigu to receive a hero star. … The oligarchic clan that rules Russia needed the war,” he said. “The mentally ill scumbags decided: ‘It’s OK, we’ll throw in a few thousand more Russian men as cannon fodder. They’ll die under artillery fire, but we’ll get what we want.’”
“Shoigu killed thousands of the most combat-ready Russian soldiers in the first days of the war,” Prigozhin said, adding that the invasion began even as Zelenskyy and Ukraine were eager for peace. The Ukrainian leader “was ready for agreements. All that needed to be done was to get off Mount Olympus and negotiate with him.”
Prigozhin thus punctured the main argument used by Russian propagandists and their Western lackeys: that NATO’s eastward expansion since the end of the Cold War caused the war in Ukraine. Putin has constantly railed against NATO, and his misleading narrative that the U.S. caused the war in Ukraine by pushing for alliance’s expansion has resonated widely among pro-Putin right-wing extremists in the West.
Prigozhin quickly followed up his criticism of the war by leading his Wagner mercenaries in an armed rebellion. They left Ukraine, seized the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, and marched north toward Moscow. By June 24, just as Prigozhin and his troops were closing in on Moscow, he lost his nerve and cut a deal with Putin. The deal was brokered by Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko, a close Putin ally. Prigozhin is apparently going into exile in Belarus while the status of Wagner forces in Ukraine and elsewhere remains in flux.
But even as Prigozhin exits the scene, his rare bout of honesty could have a delayed impact. If Prigozhin’s comments become widely known in Russia despite the regime’s strict censorship, they could lead to a further erosion of Russian support for the war. Putin’s hold on power, meanwhile, has already been seriously weakened by Prigozhin’s rebellion.
It is still unclear whether Prigozhin’s candor will have any impact on right-wing extremists in the U.S. who support Putin and have defended his invasion of Ukraine. Right-wing pundits like former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson have been cheerleaders for Putin’s war, disseminating pro-Russian conspiracy theories like the false claim that the U.S. funded bio-weapons labs in Ukraine. The right-wing support for Putin and his invasion is strongest among Christian nationalists, a segment of pro-Trump evangelical Christians who have come to hate Western liberalism and yearn for an autocrat like Putin who would wipe away wokeness. They have been joined by members of other fringe groups, like those who claim to be anti-imperialists while supporting Putin’s imperial ambitions.
Prigozhin is a terrible messenger of the truth. He certainly had his own selfish reasons for stating that Russia’s war is built on lies. Yet his truth-telling may ultimately help rip off the façade Putin erected to conceal the reality of his war in Ukraine.
ONE OF THE most subversive things that Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin did during his brief rebellion last weekend was to tell the truth.
Prigozhin is a pathological liar, a professional disinformation artist who was indicted in the United States in connection with the internet troll farm he ran, which was at the forefront of Russian efforts to intervene in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Donald Trump win.
But as the mercenary boss began his mutiny in late June, he experienced a brief and surprising bout of honesty when he launched into an online tirade against what he said were the lies used by Moscow to justify the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine. His comments were so candid and off-message for a Russian leader that it seemed as if someone had mistakenly handed him a speech meant for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Related
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Coup Targets Putin and His “Oligarchic Clan”
The invasion was nothing more than a massive land grab by the Russian oligarchy, Prigozhin charged, designed to enrich the country’s powerful elites while poor Russians served as cannon fodder. Russian claims that a Nazi regime in Ukraine, backed by NATO, was about to attack Russia were lies, Prigozhin said. The war was started by the Russian oligarchy to benefit themselves and gain power. In his rant, Prigozhin did not criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin by name, focusing instead on the broader Russian elite, and specifically on his personal enemy Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
“The Ministry of Defense is trying to deceive the public and the president and spin the story that there were insane levels of aggression from the Ukrainian side and that they were going to attack us together with the whole NATO bloc,” Prigozhin said on his Telegram channel on June 23. The truth, he said, was that “there was nothing extraordinary happening on the eve of February 24,” the day last year when Russian invaded. Ukraine was not planning any kind of attack against Russia, he added.
Russia’s invasion “was started for a completely different reason,” Prigozhin said. “What was the war for? The war was needed for Shoigu to receive a hero star. … The oligarchic clan that rules Russia needed the war,” he said. “The mentally ill scumbags decided: ‘It’s OK, we’ll throw in a few thousand more Russian men as cannon fodder. They’ll die under artillery fire, but we’ll get what we want.’”
“Shoigu killed thousands of the most combat-ready Russian soldiers in the first days of the war,” Prigozhin said, adding that the invasion began even as Zelenskyy and Ukraine were eager for peace. The Ukrainian leader “was ready for agreements. All that needed to be done was to get off Mount Olympus and negotiate with him.”
Prigozhin thus punctured the main argument used by Russian propagandists and their Western lackeys: that NATO’s eastward expansion since the end of the Cold War caused the war in Ukraine. Putin has constantly railed against NATO, and his misleading narrative that the U.S. caused the war in Ukraine by pushing for alliance’s expansion has resonated widely among pro-Putin right-wing extremists in the West.
Prigozhin quickly followed up his criticism of the war by leading his Wagner mercenaries in an armed rebellion. They left Ukraine, seized the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, and marched north toward Moscow. By June 24, just as Prigozhin and his troops were closing in on Moscow, he lost his nerve and cut a deal with Putin. The deal was brokered by Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko, a close Putin ally. Prigozhin is apparently going into exile in Belarus while the status of Wagner forces in Ukraine and elsewhere remains in flux.
But even as Prigozhin exits the scene, his rare bout of honesty could have a delayed impact. If Prigozhin’s comments become widely known in Russia despite the regime’s strict censorship, they could lead to a further erosion of Russian support for the war. Putin’s hold on power, meanwhile, has already been seriously weakened by Prigozhin’s rebellion.
It is still unclear whether Prigozhin’s candor will have any impact on right-wing extremists in the U.S. who support Putin and have defended his invasion of Ukraine. Right-wing pundits like former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson have been cheerleaders for Putin’s war, disseminating pro-Russian conspiracy theories like the false claim that the U.S. funded bio-weapons labs in Ukraine. The right-wing support for Putin and his invasion is strongest among Christian nationalists, a segment of pro-Trump evangelical Christians who have come to hate Western liberalism and yearn for an autocrat like Putin who would wipe away wokeness. They have been joined by members of other fringe groups, like those who claim to be anti-imperialists while supporting Putin’s imperial ambitions.
Prigozhin is a terrible messenger of the truth. He certainly had his own selfish reasons for stating that Russia’s war is built on lies. Yet his truth-telling may ultimately help rip off the façade Putin erected to conceal the reality of his war in Ukraine.
Dismissing Rebellion as ‘Minor,’ Kremlin Dismantles Prigozhin’s Empire
Ivan Nechepurenko and Cassandra Vinograd
Ivan Nechepurenko and Cassandra Vinograd
The New York Times
Sat, July 1, 2023
A resident rides his bicycle by a sign warning for the presence of mines inside the cemetery in Sviatohirsk, in eastern Ukraine, on June 25, 2023.
A resident rides his bicycle by a sign warning for the presence of mines inside the cemetery in Sviatohirsk, in eastern Ukraine, on June 25, 2023.
(Mauricio Lima/The New York Times)
The mercenary rebellion that shook Russia was merely “a minor trouble,” the foreign minister said on Friday, warning the West not to think that President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power had weakened, even as the Kremlin continued to move against the leader of the mutiny.
Speaking at a news conference, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov asserted that Russia would emerge “stronger and more resilient” after the short-lived putsch last Friday and Saturday by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner group troops, who have played a vital role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Lavrov dismissed the rebellion, which drove an armored column to within 125 miles of Moscow before turning back, as insignificant.
“If someone in the West has doubts about this, then that’s their problem,” he said. He added that the Western nations backing Ukraine were misguided if they hoped that “the facade of the Russian government had cracked.”
The Kremlin has insisted repeatedly that the uprising had no support and the nation was united behind Putin, who has described the episode as an important test that Russia had emphatically passed. But it is clear that the government is still cleaning up its aftermath.
The fates of two key figures remain unclear: Prigozhin and Gen. Sergei Surovikin, a top military commander seen as being aligned with Prigozhin. Neither has been heard from publicly since last weekend, their whereabouts have not been confirmed, and it is not clear what degree of freedom, if any, either man still enjoys.
The government of Belarus, Putin’s closest international ally, said on Tuesday that Prigozhin had gone into exile there, but there has been no independent corroboration of that. Russian authorities have apparently agreed not to prosecute Prigozhin or his troops, in return for his decision to stand down last Saturday without a major armed clash.
U.S. officials say that Surovikin, commander of Russian air forces and formerly commander of the war effort in Ukraine, probably knew in advance about the mutiny, and appears to have been detained. The Russian government has refused to comment. Some pro-war Russian bloggers have reported that he was arrested, while others have denied it.
William Burns, the CIA director, called the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service after last week’s rebellion to assure the Kremlin the U.S. had no involvement, according to a U.S. official, one of several contacts delivering that message. The CIA declined to comment on Burn’ call, which was earlier reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The Biden administration has taken pains to emphasize to Russian officials that it had no hand in the uprising, and views it as an internal Russian matter. In public comments, Lavrov has appeared to accept those explanations.
Russia’s state media regulator has blocked a news website controlled by Prigozhin, and on Friday, a Russian newspaper, Kommersant, reported that several others had been blocked as well. Russian security services have reportedly raided the offices of other Prigozhin holdings.
Putin, whose government had long denied any connection to Wagner — as did Prigozhin until last year — admitted this week that Kremlin contracts had supported the private army. He said there would be an investigation of those contracts to punish graft and profiteering.
The Kremlin has moved this week to take control of Wagner mercenary forces in other countries, including Syria and the Central African Republic, where they have formed the brutal spear point of Russian support for repressive governments, often while securing lucrative concessions in natural resources. Russian diplomats have rushed to assure their allies of continued Wagner backing.
John Kirby, spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, said Friday that Wagner, working for the military junta that rules Mali, had engineered the departure of a United Nations peacekeeping force in that country to further its own business interests. Weeks ago, the junta asked the peacekeepers to leave “without delay,” and on Friday, the U.N. Security Council voted to withdraw them.
It is unclear what will become of Wagner troops who have been fighting in Ukraine, an important part of the Russian war effort that has given Prigozhin a robust following in Russia. They have been ordered to sign contracts by Saturday with the Defense Ministry, putting them under the control of the regular Russian military, if they are to remain part of the war.
That order spelled the end of Wagner as an independent force in Ukraine, weakened Prigozhin as a political force, and showed that he had lost his long-running power struggle against the leaders of Russia’s military establishment. He said it also prompted his rebellion, which he insisted was aimed at those military leaders, not at Putin.
President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus said this week that he would be willing to take in Wagner fighters who are unwilling to join the Russian military, and offered them an abandoned military base. But it is unknown how many will accept the offer.
New satellite imagery from Thursday and Friday, analyzed by The New York Times, shows more than 250 tents, enough to house thousands of troops, have been erected in the past five days at an unused base. The Times first reported Wednesday on rapid construction there. The images show no sign so far of a major troop presence.
The relocation of Wagner fighters to Belarus could create a new threat to Ukraine on its northern border, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday ordered defenses there strengthened.
c.2023 The New York Times Company
The mercenary rebellion that shook Russia was merely “a minor trouble,” the foreign minister said on Friday, warning the West not to think that President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power had weakened, even as the Kremlin continued to move against the leader of the mutiny.
Speaking at a news conference, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov asserted that Russia would emerge “stronger and more resilient” after the short-lived putsch last Friday and Saturday by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner group troops, who have played a vital role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Lavrov dismissed the rebellion, which drove an armored column to within 125 miles of Moscow before turning back, as insignificant.
“If someone in the West has doubts about this, then that’s their problem,” he said. He added that the Western nations backing Ukraine were misguided if they hoped that “the facade of the Russian government had cracked.”
The Kremlin has insisted repeatedly that the uprising had no support and the nation was united behind Putin, who has described the episode as an important test that Russia had emphatically passed. But it is clear that the government is still cleaning up its aftermath.
The fates of two key figures remain unclear: Prigozhin and Gen. Sergei Surovikin, a top military commander seen as being aligned with Prigozhin. Neither has been heard from publicly since last weekend, their whereabouts have not been confirmed, and it is not clear what degree of freedom, if any, either man still enjoys.
The government of Belarus, Putin’s closest international ally, said on Tuesday that Prigozhin had gone into exile there, but there has been no independent corroboration of that. Russian authorities have apparently agreed not to prosecute Prigozhin or his troops, in return for his decision to stand down last Saturday without a major armed clash.
U.S. officials say that Surovikin, commander of Russian air forces and formerly commander of the war effort in Ukraine, probably knew in advance about the mutiny, and appears to have been detained. The Russian government has refused to comment. Some pro-war Russian bloggers have reported that he was arrested, while others have denied it.
William Burns, the CIA director, called the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service after last week’s rebellion to assure the Kremlin the U.S. had no involvement, according to a U.S. official, one of several contacts delivering that message. The CIA declined to comment on Burn’ call, which was earlier reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The Biden administration has taken pains to emphasize to Russian officials that it had no hand in the uprising, and views it as an internal Russian matter. In public comments, Lavrov has appeared to accept those explanations.
Russia’s state media regulator has blocked a news website controlled by Prigozhin, and on Friday, a Russian newspaper, Kommersant, reported that several others had been blocked as well. Russian security services have reportedly raided the offices of other Prigozhin holdings.
Putin, whose government had long denied any connection to Wagner — as did Prigozhin until last year — admitted this week that Kremlin contracts had supported the private army. He said there would be an investigation of those contracts to punish graft and profiteering.
The Kremlin has moved this week to take control of Wagner mercenary forces in other countries, including Syria and the Central African Republic, where they have formed the brutal spear point of Russian support for repressive governments, often while securing lucrative concessions in natural resources. Russian diplomats have rushed to assure their allies of continued Wagner backing.
John Kirby, spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, said Friday that Wagner, working for the military junta that rules Mali, had engineered the departure of a United Nations peacekeeping force in that country to further its own business interests. Weeks ago, the junta asked the peacekeepers to leave “without delay,” and on Friday, the U.N. Security Council voted to withdraw them.
It is unclear what will become of Wagner troops who have been fighting in Ukraine, an important part of the Russian war effort that has given Prigozhin a robust following in Russia. They have been ordered to sign contracts by Saturday with the Defense Ministry, putting them under the control of the regular Russian military, if they are to remain part of the war.
That order spelled the end of Wagner as an independent force in Ukraine, weakened Prigozhin as a political force, and showed that he had lost his long-running power struggle against the leaders of Russia’s military establishment. He said it also prompted his rebellion, which he insisted was aimed at those military leaders, not at Putin.
President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus said this week that he would be willing to take in Wagner fighters who are unwilling to join the Russian military, and offered them an abandoned military base. But it is unknown how many will accept the offer.
New satellite imagery from Thursday and Friday, analyzed by The New York Times, shows more than 250 tents, enough to house thousands of troops, have been erected in the past five days at an unused base. The Times first reported Wednesday on rapid construction there. The images show no sign so far of a major troop presence.
The relocation of Wagner fighters to Belarus could create a new threat to Ukraine on its northern border, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday ordered defenses there strengthened.
c.2023 The New York Times Company
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