Hot dogs of war

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group and ex hotdog seller declared an all-out war on the Russian state. 

He claimed Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had driven to the city of Rostov in southern Russia to personally take command of the fight, The Russian MoD publicly rejected his claims, calling them an 'informational provocation'. Doublespeak rules. Yet see the lame ducks : Chief of the Russian general staff Valery Gerasimov, left, and defence minister Sergei Shoigu. Their clocks must surely be ticking.

Putin compounded his error by contracting out part of the war to Wagner, a private army led by ex-convict Yevgeny Prigozhin. Once tensions exploded between Wagner’s thuggish warlord and the state military and its hapless leadership, this rebounded on Putin personally.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov says Putin has been appraised and will menacingly take all “relevant steps”. Putin recently placed a stack of tactical nukes in Belarus, and this could be the provocation to take them for a spin. 

Prigozhin (above, left) — a former convict turned caterer "Putin's chef" turned oligarch — acknowledges that the relationship between him and Putin was a particular one. In Russia (as I write about in some of my novels) they call it krysha, which literally means “roof”. 

In the late Eighties, as gangsterism grew in direct proportion to the failure of communism, and with it the implosion of the Russian state, it expanded to mean a different kind of protection; not from the elements, but from organised crime. 

From the early days of his presidency, Putin presented himself as a normal bloke (muzhik) facing down the oligarchs. He threatened to whack terrorists in the outhouse, and made geopolitical observations using bawdy jokes. Wholesale gangsterism had taken over the Russian state. Putin, having practised in St Petersburg and before that in Dresden became the top mobster in a mobster state, and, among many other things, he became Prigozhin’s krysha. 

For a while it worked. Wagner sent its psychopathic and criminal soldiers in 'meat waves' at the enemy. It was Wagner troops who  fought in Bakhmut, dying in their thousands so Putin could claim some sort of victory over the ruins that the city is today. 

But as Wagner acted, so did the Russian state. The Russian Ministry of Defence sent a message to the 'mercenaries of Wagner': 'You have been tricked into Prigozhin’s criminal adventure and into participating in an armed rebellion… Many of your comrades from several units have already realised their mistake and are seeking help.'

Then Putin, rattled, went on Russian TV. 'Russia’s future is at stake,' he said, describing Wagner’s actions as a 'stab in the back'. He then warned of 'inevitable punishment' for those dividing Russian society and said a counter-terrorism regime was now in place in the capital Moscow and several other regions. 

It caused Prigozhin to withdraw allegedly on the basis that Putin says 'All necessary orders have been given' to deal with the crisis. Putin was clear in his speech: he has ordered Russian forces to destroy Wagner.  I suspect the truth is even darker.

Prigozhin had originally seized Rostov. Heavy fighting was reported in the Voronezh Oblast between Wagner forces and the Russian Military and National Guard. Overhead, the Russian Air Force targeted Wagner positions with Guided-Bombs and rockets. 

Yet Putin's speech headed off a civil war of Russians killing Russians inside their own territory. 

But I wonder how many days Prigozhin and his family will survice when he has withdrawn to Belarus?

Prigozhin’s mutiny broke a taboo against challenging Russia’s mafia-style leader, and pierced the veil of his invulnerability. Rather than relying on fear and the destruction of all potential opponents within Moscow’s elites, Putin has presided as the ultimate arbiter between factions — the one who can hold things together while keeping the support of the Russian people. 

Putin has prior form. Salisbury. Or journaliist Anna Politkovskaya. Or TV Rain. or Litvenenko. Or  Pavil Antov or Ravil Maganov or Natalia Estimirova or Denis Voronenkov. Or Boris Nemtsov. Or Boris Berezovsky found dead inside a locked bathroom at his home in the United Kingdom, a noose around his neck, in what was at first deemed a suicide. Or Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova both gunned down by masked assassins near the Kremlin, Or lawyer Sergei Magnitsky who died in Russian police custody after allegedly being brutally beaten, then denied medical care. Or Yuri Shchekochikhin who contracted a mysterious illness. He died suddenly, a few days before he was supposed to depart for the United States. His medical documents were deemed classified by Russian authorities. 

And don't get me started on the business men pushed out of high rise windows.