We're used to hearing Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner, yell and scream about issues on the battlefield at the Russian military establishment, especially at defense minister Sergei Shoigu.
The Wagner mercenary group and the Ministry of Defence have a history of open conflict.
Though this is.
In his most recent video outburst posted on Telegram, Prigozhin accuses Shoigu of igniting Russia's conflict in Ukraine in February of last year.
Prigozhin began by describing the conflict in eastern Ukraine that broke out in 2014 following Russia's military intervention, saying: "We were hitting them, and they were hitting us. It continued in this manner for those eight arduous years, from 2014 to 2022. There were more skirmishes sometimes than there were other times. ".
"Nothing extraordinary occurred there on February 24 [2022]. Currently, the Ministry of Defense is attempting to mislead the public and the president by fabricating an attack plan by Ukraine that included the entire Nato bloc and involved us.
The war was necessary. The war wasn't to demilitarize or de-nazify Ukraine; it was to enable Shoigu to obtain a second Hero Star and become a Marshal. It was required for an additional star. ".
In addition, Prigozhin blamed the oligarchs for the conflict, denouncing "the clan that actually rules Russia today.".
Angry language. Will they result in anything, though?
That depends on how Prigozhin currently feels about President Vladimir Putin. Nobody is currently certain of what that is.
If the tough-talking, irate Prigozhin we see and hear on Telegram is a fully-fledged Kremlin project, then his tirade about Shoigu and oligarchs being to blame for the war may be intended to shield Putin from criticism while providing the Kremlin with a potential exit strategy from a conflict that hasn't gone as planned without harming the president or the political system.
Putin is not among the fall-guys that Prigozhin has identified.
But would that function?
After all, Putin is so closely linked to this conflict. The Kremlin leader made it clear that he made the decision to start the so-called "special military operation," or the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, in his speech to the nation on February 24, 2022. .
Additionally, it doesn't speak well of the leader of the country to claim that the president has been gravely misled by a minister he appointed.
It's true that the Kremlin dominates the media and the messaging in Russia. Many Russians would agree with this interpretation if it were broadcast by local TV stations and Kremlin-supporting military bloggers.
What if Prigozhin's outburst wasn't planned with the Kremlin? What if he acted independently with his own political goals?
That might make the Kremlin's message less persuasive.
Only last week did Putin reiterate the need to "demilitarize" and "de-nazify" Ukraine in his opinion. That claim is refuted by Prigozhin's most recent remarks.
Making sense of Russian politics, as I've previously written, is like attempting to complete a sizable jigsaw puzzle with the majority of the pieces missing. You make an effort to connect the clues, but you can never be completely certain of what the final picture will look like.
Prigozhin is still a mystery to me.
However, in addition to the Wagner chief, there are other intriguing pieces of the Russian puzzle that point to a different conclusion.
For instance, given how poorly things have turned out for the Kremlin in Ukraine, could Moscow say that its mission has been accomplished?
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for President Putin, recently asserted that "the aim [of demilitarizing Ukraine] has largely been achieved," citing Ukraine's decreasing stock of domestic weapons and growing reliance on foreign arms.
More than 20 Ukrainian soldiers who are part of the Azov regiment were also put on trial earlier this month in southern Russia. Russia refers to Azov as a "terrorist group" that houses Nazis. Could it simply characterize this as "de-nazification" and end there?
But there are other indications that "stopping" is not in Putin's plans. His recent TV appearances have given the impression that he is certain to win and dismissive of Ukraine's counteroffensive.
This week, Putin stated to a Russian TV reporter that the enemy was suffering significant losses and had no chance.
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