Well before Yevgeny Prigozhin seized a major Russian military hub and ordered an armed march on Moscow, posing a startling and dramatic threat to President Vladimir Putin, the caterer-turned-mercenary boss was losing his own personal war.
Yevgeny Prigozhin was, by the end of February, publicly accusing Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu of treason, claiming he was deliberately withholding ammunition and supplies from Wagner to destroy it. Photograph: AP
The mutiny, however short-lived, has been widely viewed as an ominous political harbinger for Putin’s leadership, one that could presage more instability as the Russian president presses on with his costly war.But it is equally the personal story of an obstreperous and mercurial freelance warlord who undertook an emotional last-ditch attempt to win by force one of the most extraordinary Russian power struggles in recent memory.
When Yevgeny Prigozhin was offered a chance to end the crisis by withdrawing his forces, he took it. Photograph: Prigozhin Press Service via AP So secretive was Prigozhin about his activities that he long denied any association with Wagner and even sued Russian media outlets for reporting on his connection to the group.In September, Prigozhin went public for the first time as the man behind Wagner.
But by the beginning of this year, Prigozhin’s adversaries in the Kremlin began reasserting their power.‘For a long time Wagner were regarded as scruffy mercenaries. Western armies have finally woken up’In January, Putin appointed Gen Valery Gerasimov, to replace Surovikin as the top commander of operations in Ukraine. Prigozhin frequently belittled Gerasimov in his Telegram audio messages, implying that he was an office-bound official of the kind that smothers regular soldiers with bureaucracy.
But the rivalry would only escalate. No longer able to recruit prisoners, Wagner was forced to rely increasingly on its limited supply of skilled veteran fighters to continue waging battle in Bakhmut, according to Ukrainian and western officials. “You stinking beasts, what are you doing? You swine!” he said in one recording in late May. “Get your asses out of your offices, which you were given to protect this country.”
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