Less than 24 hours after the mutiny began, it was over.
a day before taking control of Rostov-on-Don, Prigozhin argued that the Ukraine war was a mistake from the beginning, launched to benefit the personal interests of Defense Minister Shoigu and an inner circle of oligarchs. Prigozhin brushed aside all the ideological claims Putin has made about the war – the need to denazify Ukraine, the threat of NATO expansion – as just cover for self-interest. “Our holy war has turned into a racket,” he said.
Prigozhin’s words and actions have exposed the vulnerability of Putin’s grip on power and the hollowness of his ideological framing of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s place in the world.Putin’s constant refrain is that any opposition to his rule – whether it be from the Kyiv government or from protesters at home – is part of a. It is hard to imagine that his propagandists will be able to argue that Prigozhin is also a tool of the West.
Over the past 10 years, and especially since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Putin has ruthlessly deployed the coercive apparatus of the state to crush any liberal opposition. At the same time, radical ultranationalists – not only Prigozhin but also thereporting from the war zone – have been given a relatively free hand.
For the most part, they were kept out of state-controlled television broadcasts, but they have reached a wider Russian audience through social media channels such as Telegram, VKontakte, and YouTube. Prigozhin, a former convict who went on to provide catering for the Kremlin before founding the Wagner group, has seen his profile and popularity in Russia rise during the war in Ukraine. In May 2023 polling, he wasIt is unclear why Putin was tolerating the nationalists, Prigozhin included, as they increasingly questioned Russia’s war performance. It may be because the Russian president is ideologically aligned with them, or saw them as useful in balancing the power of the generals.
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