Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the outspoken Russian mercenary tycoon, described his nation’s invasion of Ukraine on Friday as a “racket” perpetrated by a corrupt elite chasing cash and glory with out concern for Russian lives.
While Mr. Prigozhin, who leads the non-public Wagner drive that has been combating alongside the Russian navy in Ukraine, has been scathing of Russia’s navy management for months, the 30-minute video monologue he launched on Friday took his criticism to a brand new degree.
He didn’t explicitly impugn President Vladimir V. Putin, as a substitute casting him as a pacesetter being misled by his officers. But in dismissing the Kremlin’s narrative that the invasion was of existential necessity for the Russian nation, Mr. Prigozhin went farther than anybody in Russia’s safety institution in publicly difficult the knowledge of the conflict.
“The war wasn’t needed to return Russian citizens to our bosom, nor to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine,” Mr. Prigozhin stated, referring to Mr. Putin’s preliminary justifications for the conflict. “The war was needed so that a bunch of animals could simply exult in glory.”
Friday’s diatribe deepened the enigma of Mr. Prigozhin’s ambiguous function in Mr. Putin’s system. His Wagner troops, composed of veteran fighters in addition to hundreds of convicts whom Mr. Prigozhin personally recruited from Russian prisons, proved key in capturing the Ukrainian metropolis of Bakhmut in May after a monthslong battle.
But through the battle for Bakhmut Mr. Prigozhin additionally emerged as a populist political determine, excoriating Russia’s navy management for corruption and for not offering his forces with sufficient ammunition. His indignant recordings and movies posted to the Telegram messaging community forged prime navy and Kremlin officers as unaware and uncaring of the struggles of standard Russian troopers.
Mr. Putin has not reined in Mr. Prigozhin, whilst his safety forces have jailed or fined hundreds of Russians for criticizing the navy or opposing the conflict. Some individuals who know Mr. Putin have stated they consider that the president nonetheless sees Mr. Prigozhin as a loyal servant making use of wanted strain on a sprawling navy equipment. Others theorize that the Kremlin has orchestrated Mr. Prigozhin’s tirades in opposition to Sergei Ok. Shoigu, the protection minister, to deflect blame from Mr. Putin himself.
But Friday’s video sophisticated the image, with Mr. Prigozhin going after not simply Mr. Shoigu but in addition unnamed “oligarchs” round Mr. Putin, whereas casting all the official rhetoric across the invasion as a sham. He stated there was “nothing out of the ordinary” in Ukraine’s navy posture on the eve of the February 2022 invasion — difficult the Kremlin’s justification that Ukraine was on the verge of attacking Russian-backed separatist territory within the nation’s east.
“Our holy war with those who offend the Russian people, with those who are trying to humiliate them, has turned into a racket,” he stated.
The feedback come as Russia fights to carry again Ukraine’s counteroffensive — a combat that Mr. Prigozhin asserted in his video was going way more poorly for Russia than the federal government was letting on. On Telegram, pro-war commentators rapidly pushed again in opposition to Mr. Prigozhin, together with Igor Girkin, a former paramilitary commander who himself has usually criticized Russia’s prime brass.
“Prigozhin already should have been handed over to a military tribunal for many things,” Mr. Girkin wrote. “Now also for treason.”
Source: www.nytimes.com