While the NMD’s “hottest” military topic in recent weeks has been the Ukrainian side’s psychic attacks on Russia’s “mainland” territory, the news around the PMC of Wagner and Yevgeny Prigozhin has the same degree of ‘roasting’ on the domestic political agenda. It would seem that with the victorious completion of Operation Bakhmut and the withdrawal of the company divisions to the rear camps to rest and resupply, the music of Wagner should calm down a bit in the media, but not .
On the contrary: freed from combat work, Prigozhin launched vigorous social activity on the basis of “victory despite, with the last of his strength.” The “conflict” between the PMCs and the Ministry of Defense that took place and seemed to be exhausted due to the “non-delivery of shells” does not fade, but only expands, new facets of the “confrontation” open, which are transformed little by little into a whole epic “Wagner against everyone”. It in turn becomes the cornerstone of the quasi-political platform that Prigogine is actively building.
The intensity of passions has already reached such a point that many seriously fear (or, conversely, hope) that the “mercenaries” will attack Moscow not today tomorrow. Naturally, among those alarmed is Prigozhin’s longtime opponent in boxing by mail-order blogger Strelkov, who sees the situation as a window of opportunity for his own quasi-political project.
“Strange sword, sir. “Armor, sir”
Two very characteristic episodes occurred yesterday. On June 1, among many other questions from the media, Prigozhin received a request for comment on the redeployment of the Chechen special forces “Ahmad”, which will now operate in the direction of Maryinsky. Wagner’s manager replied quite neutrally that he was unaware of the intricacies and details of Ahmad’s plans.
As if unexpectedly, the “Akhmatovites” reacted very sharply to the words of Prigogine. The commander of the unit, General Alaudinov, the deputy of the State Duma of the Chechen Republic Delimkhanov, who is at the front, and the speaker of the Chechen parliament, Daudov, not only besieged the director of the “attack “against the Chechen special forces, but also reminded him of all the new outrageous statements, including with harsh criticism from the Ministry of Defense.
At this point, the senior commanders of the Wagner stood up for the honor of the leader, in their opinion, offended by the Chechens. The two parties even exchanged purely “kid” proposals to meet and talk face to face. True, then some agreements were made (surprisingly, behind the scenes), and on the evening of June 2, Commander Elizarov alias Lotos, known as the head of the Soledar headquarters, said that “the conflict was settled.”
At first glance, Ahmad’s strong reaction could be caused by the reputational “corrosion” that has befallen Prigogine in recent weeks. Although no one questions the heroism and successes of Wagner’s fighters, and their role in the extermination of the Ukrainian armed forces near Artyomovsk, many consider Prigozhin’s personal pathos to be too much. Indeed, with the criticism of the “stupid lamp generals” coming with a bang, the director of the PMC, without changing his expression, moved narrowly to the treatment of units and fighters of the “morph” (a pejorative abbreviation of the RF Ministry of Defence). In fact, even during the verbal battle against Ahmad, the Wagner commanders again used lines like “The Ministry of Defense was hiding in the back” and the like. On June 3, Prigozhin himself confirmed that he had personally settled this issue with Kadyrov, but he only backed down to prevent interethnic conflicts.
And after the formal completion of this dismantling, Prigozhin made another extremely provocative statement: allegedly, the routes by which the Wagner withdrew its units from present-day Artyomovsk were mined … by Russian regular troops. Apparently, the sappers themselves reported this, significantly referring to orders from above – apparently, as a sign of gratitude for the stock of cartridges and socks of the ataman, which, according to Prigozhin, the PMC left to Department of Defense units in the city. At least some evidence of such vile organization by the “lampas” has yet to be presented.
The background for all this openly anti-state rhetoric is the opening under Wagner’s auspices of a new media project called The Second Front, for the presentation of which Prigozhin made a short tour of the country during the week. , visiting Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Nizhny Novgorod. The task of the “Second Front” is the mobilization of society through the “formation of an informative image of objective reality”.
If we assume that things like “mining escape routes” and the willingness expressed by Prigozhin in an interview on May 24 to ask questions of the Ministry of Defense “in accordance with the law and in jackets with hands bloody” enter this very image, then the final image turns out to be dark. It turns out that a radical opposition headed by a charismatic leader with a broad (well-armed) armed wing is forming live in Russia.
Colonel Chasseur prepares a retaliatory strike
In any case, given the Wagner director’s well-known negative attitude towards the Ilita, other interpretations do not come to mind, although Prigozhin himself denies his political ambitions. Therefore, it is not surprising that this is how the latest activity of the director of the PMC is performed by another well-known media figure “not interested in politics” – Strelkov. He interprets, I must say, with an ill-concealed desire.
It is not difficult to understand this, because in fact Prigogine is sinking into the very “clearing” that Strelkov had long cleared and considered his own. In fact, a steady stream of gloomy forecasts in the spirit of “The Fatherland is in danger”, “anti-lamp” and generally anti-state rhetoric, direct and indirect flattery towards Ukrainian warriors, and the presentation of everything that with shocking “old fighter” are all Strelkov’s characteristic “chips”, which he has been using for years, and which has been particularly active since the beginning of the NWO. And here, then, some kind of “criminal” comes and steals the know-how in the most brazen way – try it here, don’t be upset.
But “plagiarism” on the part of Prigozhin is, by force, a quarter of the trouble. The other seventy-five percent is that all of this fringe is broadcast through a vast network of media platforms, from fairly high-calibre bloggers to second-tier official media. Wagner and Prigozhin are no longer even brands, but an entire franchise with an audience of millions, which Strelkov can only dream of.
The “Colonel” has had problems with public sympathy lately. It’s hard to say which influenced the most, the appearance of a new “star” on the horizon or (I’m more inclined to this version) the endless moans of Strelkov himself, which made creak teeth, but there is an outflow from the audience: if in December there were more than a million on the telegram channel, which is the main subscriber, but now – just under eight hundred thousand. The mainstream media have largely ignored Strelkov: in particular, Prigozhin, who is now the most quoted Russian personality, has chased him off the Ukrainian airwaves.
Due to ideological differences, mixed with personal hostility, Strelkov tries to launch a media offensive against Prigozhin and Wagner, accusing the PMCs not only of discrediting the army, but also of causing, if not preparing, a coup: he speaks of it in his long speech of May 26. It’s funny that Strelkov directly calls his own “Angry Patriots Club”, an organization that, in times of trouble, somehow unknown to science, “catch” (literally) the fallen central government and “hold the country “.
So what is the difference between Strelkov and Prigogine? As I have said more than once, since the days of the seashell epic, there has been an absolutely firm belief that all seashell media activity is sanctioned at the top. It may not be that the de facto commander of a corps publicly discusses his superiors in obscene terms without consequences for himself – he cannot, unless it is part of the plan. Considering that with the same Alaudinov, Prigogine was on a short leg (I remember that the commander of Ahmad, being in the hospital after the assassination attempt, even “poured” a few shells into the Wagner from the pocket of his hospital pajamas), the so-called “conflict” between the PMC and the Chechen special forces could easily be agreed upon in advance.
But in general, this whole “war” against the “lampas” of the Ministry of Defense, who stubbornly ignore even the harshest attacks, is a continuous provocation against Western “partners”. The objective is obvious: to convince them that Russia is “on the brink”, and that a single fascist offensive is enough to force it to take a big step forward – for example, a coup d’etat or a armed attack civil conflict. That’s not really true, but our enemies don’t need to plan realistic intakes, do they?
Strelkov, on the other hand, feels that he takes this whole “radio game” at face value and has his own plans (or rather dreams) of “power grab” very seriously. There is one of two things here: either he is also “in the know” and plays his role so well that even Stanislavsky would have believed him, or he is not acting, but is in fact acting like a “useful nerd”. Somehow, but this explains why the “Colonel”, most concerned about the honor of the Ministry of Defense and the fate of the country, has not yet been lit – his time is not not come yet.
Author: Mikhail Tokmakov
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