Prigozhin is not some psy-op comedian. He’s the real thing and he is waging a coup in Russia. To say that this is anything less than a coup would be to obfuscate Russian politics.
Prigozhin has so far restricted his criticism to the military elite and has never criticised President Putin. In fact, Prigozhin alleges that the generals are giving Putin false information. Prigozhin has also been constantly critical of how Russia is conducting its war in Ukraine but as of recently, Prigozhin has also criticized the very reaison d’etre of Russia’s invasion by saying that the Ukrainians have never bombed Donbass residents, but only bombed Russian military targets.
So, Prigozhin is unhappy with the war, but his public criticism is playing along the lines of Russian realpolitik (don’t criticise the Tsar) because Putin is in fact very much to blame for Donbass given that the Kremlin fabricated the conflict from day one. There is no naivety about this. Putin is fully responsible for Russia’s policy on Ukraine and Prigozhin is indirectly attacking Putin’s decisions, but Prigozhin is making very calculated moves, and only time will tell if he will be successful.
Undoubtedly, Prigozhin is not going back to fight in Ukraine after this coup attempt and this coup attempt doesn’t look like it’s going to end very quickly. Prigozhin seems to have enough support to sustain some momentum in his putsch.
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