Mercenary Prigozhin warns Russia could face revolution unless elite gets
serious about war
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[May 24, 2023]
By Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner
mercenary group, warned that Russia could face a revolution similar to
those of 1917 and lose the conflict in Ukraine unless the elite got
serious about fighting the war.
Russia's most powerful mercenary said his political outlook was
dominated by love for the motherland and serving President Vladimir
Putin, but cautioned that Russia was in danger of turmoil.
Prigozhin said there was a so-called optimistic view that the West would
get tired of war and China would broker a peace deal, but that he did
not really believe in that interpretation.
Instead, he said, Ukraine was preparing a counteroffensive aimed at
pushing Russian troops back to its borders before 2014, when Russia
annexed Crimea. Ukraine would try to encircle Bakhmut, the focus of
intense fighting in the east, and attack Crimea, he added.
"Most likely of all, this scenario will not be good for Russia so we
need to prepare for an arduous war," he said in an interview posted on
his Telegram channel.
"We are in such a condition that we could fucking lose Russia - that is
the main problem ... We need to impose martial law."
Prigozhin said his nickname "Putin's chef" was stupid as he could not
cook and had never been a chef, quipping that "Putin's butcher" might be
a more apt nickname.
"They could have just given me a nickname right away — Putin's butcher,
and everything would have been fine," he said.
If ordinary Russians continued getting their children back in zinc
coffins while the children of the elite "shook their arses" in the sun,
he said, Russia would face turmoil along the lines of the 1917
revolutions that ushered in a civil war.
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"This divide can end as in 1917 with a revolution," he said.
"First the soldiers will stand up, and after that - their loved ones
will rise up," he said. "There are already tens of thousands of them -
relatives of those killed. And there will probably be hundreds of
thousands - we cannot avoid that."
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The defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
UKRAINE WAR
Prigozhin criticized Russia's post-Soviet policy towards Ukraine and
cast the implementation of what the Kremlin calls the "special
military operation" as unclear, contradictory and confused.
Russia's military leadership, he said, had "fucked up" repeatedly
during the war. The stated aim of demilitarizing Ukraine, he said,
had failed.
Prigozhin said Soviet leader Josef Stalin would not have accepted
such failure. A cross-border attack into Russia's Belgorod region
indicated the failures of the military leadership, he said, warning
that Ukraine would seek to strike deeper into Russia.
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Russia needed to mobilize more men and to gear the economy
exclusively to war, Prigozhin said.
Wagner, he said, had recruited around 50,000 convicts during the
war, of whom about 20% had perished. Around the same amount of his
contract soldiers - 10,000 - had perished, he said.
In Bakhmut, Prigozhin said, Ukraine had suffered casualties of
50,000-70,000 wounded and 50,000 dead.
Reuters is unable to verify casualty claims from either side, and
neither Russia nor Ukraine release figures on their own casualties.
Ukraine has said Russian losses are far higher than its losses.
Prigozhin said Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu should be replaced by
Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev while Chief of the General Staff
Valery Gerasimov should be replaced by Sergei Surovikin, nicknamed
"General Armageddon" by the Russian media.
Asked about his political credo: "I love my motherland, I serve
Putin, Shoigu should be judged and we will fight on."
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Alex
Richardson)
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