FROM OUR REPORTER
KIEV – Already murdered, or a fugitive in Belarus, or fleeing in disguise to evade assassins, quiet in his offices in St. Petersburg, but perhaps still among his guerrillas in the Rostov enclave, from where he launched in recent Days off to the capital of Russia would meet Putin personally: What happened to Yevgeny Prigozhin?
Three weeks after the failed coup in Moscow, the mysterious epic about the mercenary militia leader Wagner becomes a destabilizing metaphor for the uncertainties and fragility that dominate the Russian regime. A weakness now reflected in international relations: South Africa is discreetly pressuring Putin to avoid attending the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit in mid-August in order not to violate the arrest An arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court was issued against him.
In any case, there is no reliable news about Prigozhin, so all rumors and half-chains become the subject of conjecture. A picture of him describing him in a militia camp in Belarus appeared on Wagner’s social media yesterday. “Prigozhin early in the morning two days ago,” they write on Telegram, but without providing any other concrete evidence. A few days ago, President Lukashenko denied having been in his country.
Putin also speaks of him, who in an interview with the newspaper “Kommersant” said for the first time that he himself invited Prigozhin to his office after the armed Wagner uprising ended on July 24, 200 kilometers from Moscow. The meeting would then take place on July 29 along with 34 other senior militia officers. At that point, the Russian president, who had publicly declared his firm will to “punish the traitors” during the coup’s hardest hours, would have offered the mutineers to continue serving in the same role as before, under the command of one of their officers Andrei Troshev, known for his activities in Syria since founding Wagner in 2014. In statements seemingly intended to marginalize Prigozhin, Putin states that he would have immediately rejected the offer, but without being aware that several officials behind his back wanted to accept it. Could the interview actually be a way to announce the end of Wagner’s Führer, but without depriving the militia of its role, which continues to operate profitably for the Africa-Middle East regime?
What is certain, however, is that Wagner no longer plays a relevant role in the ranks of the Russian army stationed in Ukraine. Pentagon spokesmen said last night the militia no longer has any weight in military operations and its mercenaries are now integrated into regular units. The same observation has been made to us over the past two weeks by Ukrainian officers operating on the Bakhmut front in Donbass, where Prigozhin and his best units captured the lion’s share from June 2022 to last May.
“One has to say that Wagner is no longer here today. And this seems to make the work of the Russian commandos easier, which in recent months have repeatedly been annoyed by jealousies and competition between Wagner and regular units. Also, we no longer see the disposable soldiers, the former Wagner prisoners who died like flies in the first attack,” they explain.