Senior officers of the Wagner Group continue to use high-profile military events, including the dam explosion, to criticize Russia’s defense forces, the Institute for the Study of War reported, as cited by Sky News.

Military analyst Sean Bell says the success of the Wagner Group has led to friction between the mercenaries and the regular Russian army.

Wagner’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who described his mercenaries as “the best army in the world,” succeeded where the Russian army had failed.

And that’s why Prigozhin’s influence became a threat to Putin, Bell says.

Chechen mercenaries are now spearheading Russia’s offensive in the Donbass, an area the country continues to focus on as its “main” military effort.

But the Chechen army has not advanced – the front line on which they are fighting has not moved since 2015.

“Using other military groups, Putin deprives Prigozhin of work, money and influence. But Putin also depends on the success of the Wagner PMC mercenaries, says a military analyst

However, Bell believes it may not be the case that Prigozhin will lose power without being Putin’s favorite mercenary group.

Wagner needs to rest and recuperate after the long battle at Bakhmut.

“We should expect to see the group in action again, perhaps in Bakhmut, if Ukraine manages to surround and test the city,” says the expert.

• Read also: Who is Evgeny Prigozhin, the hot dog seller who headed Putin’s military machine

Prigozhin attacked Putin on Victory Day: “Grandfather” was beheaded

“What will the country, our children, our grandchildren, who are the future of Russia, do, and how can we win this war, if by chance, and I’m just speculating here, it turns out that this grandfather is a complete bitch,” Prigozhin said then. probably referring to Putin.

“This is not a problem with the soldiers. The problem is with the people who lead them and give them tasks. The fish stinks from the head,” Prigozhin said, naming the orders given by what he called a small clique.

“You can’t defy the tsar and live like that”

Renowned British historian Sergey Radchenko, a professor at Johns Hopkins, also says that Wagner’s leader crossed a red line when he attacked Vladimir Putin.

“This should not be in Putin’s system. Putin’s system allows subordinates to attack each other, but never to undermine their superiors. Prigozhin crossed this line. Either Putin will respond and Prigozhin will be “burned”, or – if this does not happen – it will be a signal,” he writes. Radchenko on Twitter.

“A signal that the boss is fatally weakened. And this is a system that does not respect weakness,” the historian emphasizes.

“If Prigozhin’s outbursts (including his calling Putin an ‘asshole’) go unpunished, we will know that Putin is a finished force. You just can’t challenge the king like that and stay alive. Either the king is no longer king, or… I don’t think there is an “or”. I think we will find out soon,” he wrote.

Prigozhin, many ambitions and many enemies

For Prigozhin, say those who know him, neither money nor power was the only motivating factor, although now he has both money and power. Instead, they say, he is driven by a thrill of vigilantism, a belief that he is fighting corrupt elites on behalf of the common man, and a desire to crush his rivals.

“He seems to be enjoying the process, not just the end result,” said a former defense official.

Over the years, Prigozhin made many enemies: former business partners who felt cheated, army generals whom he criticized as mere bureaucrats, and top security officials who feared they had ambitions to gain political power.

But for now, he has retained the favor of his most important supporter: Vladimir Putin, the man he calls the Pope.

• Read also: Reuters ANALYSIS: Can the Kremlin still control it? How important Prigozhin became for Putin after his success on the Ukrainian battlefield

Yevgeny Prigozhin with Vladimir Putin Photo: Oleksiy Druzhinin / AFP / Profimedia Images

Prigozhin says that there may be a revolution like in 1917

Yevgeny Prigozhin recently warned that Russia could face a revolution similar to the 1917 revolution and could lose the conflict in Ukraine if the country’s elites do not get seriously involved in this war, Reuters reports.

Ukraine will try to surround Bakhmut and advance on Crimea, he added.

“Most likely, this scenario will be unsuccessful for Russia, so we should prepare for a full-scale war,” he said in an interview published on his Telegram channel.

• Read also: Is Putin’s power creaking? From images of Prigozhin to Russian oligarchs under pressure

Prigozhin: “We can lose Russia to hell”

“We are in such a state that we can lose the hell out of Russia – that’s the main problem… We need to introduce martial law,” continued the leader of the Wagner group.

Prigozhin stated that his political vision is dominated by love for the country and service to Putin. He called the nickname “Putin’s cook” silly because he can’t cook, joking that “Putin’s butcher” would be a more appropriate moniker.

He said Russia’s elite protected their own children from combat during the war, while the children of ordinary Russians died on the front lines, a situation he said could spark unrest in Russia.

If ordinary Russians continue to meet their children in zinc coffins while the children of the elite sunbathe abroad, he said, Russia will face upheavals similar to the 1917 revolutions that led to civil war.

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