MARCH 19, 2023 – If you’re bored and looking for an improbable tale beyond the bounds of Marvel Comics or any streaming service, read Wikipedia entries for “Wagner Group” and its self-announced founder, the cartoonish, ex-con, once aspiring competitive x-c skier (!!), former hot dog vendor-turned-oligarch, Evgeny Prigozhin. For background, see the bio of self-appointed Russian czar, Vlad Putin—former KGB operative and chairman of Russia’s Supervisory Board for Casinos and Gambling (I kid you not).
Churchill’s famous 1939 description of Russia—“A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”—applies equally to Wagner Group, the private Russian military gang supposedly named after Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer. If you start with that confounding factoid—adoption of symbol of Russia’s biggest enemy of all times, Nazi Germany—you get a flavor for why Marvel Comics and Netflix would pass on the story.
The bad flavor wreaks of violent skullduggery in places as far afield as Africa, Syria, Hong Kong and now Ukraine. If you sniff just below the surface, you’ll detect the strong odor of hot dogs of questionable origin, sold by young Evgeny and his mother in a flea market on the edge of St. Petersburg: that’s how he got his start. Doubtless a first class hustler, after serving a prison sentence for organized burglary of St. Petersburg apartments, Prigozhin became a wealthy restaurateur known as “Putin’s chef” and parleyed his connections into a fortune.
After steadfastly denying rumors that he was in any way connected to the Wagner Group or the conflict in Ukraine, he later proudly boasted he was the founder of the outfit and the mastermind of its military successes. He’s now the face, the leader, the reincarnation of traditional Russian/Soviet military strategy: quantity over quality.
Did I forget to mention Prigozhin’s extensive military training and experience? No, because he has none of either.
Lately, his direct, searing criticism of Russia’s conventional military has been well publicized inside and outside of Russia. Such frankness by an ordinary soldier or citizen would be summarily punishable by imprisonment, defenestration or poisoning. Issued by Prigozhin, it’s part of an opaque power play about which observers can only speculate. Is he doing some underhanded bidding for his powerful patron or has the thug who knows everything about thuggery and nothing about military matters embarked on a dangerous challenge of the establishment?
All of which raises further questions about Putin’s game—and Prigozhin’s—in Ukraine. Why the bullheaded “throw everything we’ve got” approach to the battle for Bakhmut? Is the fight against Ukraine or is the real struggle between Prigozhin and the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu? Between Prigozhin and Putin? Between Kremlin insiders and Kremlin outsiders? In any case, the inhabitants of Bakhmut, not to mention the soldiers—both sides—on the front lines are taking the punishment for gang warfare among crime bosses.
Over the years I’ve not agreed with much of anything that John Bolton has advocated—until now. The Man with Eyebrows, Eyeglasses and Mustache but no Smile now argues that the U.S. and NATO should declare a clearcut objective—get Russia out of Ukraine—and give Ukraine the resources it needs to accomplish the task, now. I’m beginning to think he’s right. We’re fooling ourselves if we think Putin, Prigozhin and all the others involved in Kremlin power plays will stop battering Ukraine unless the thugs are forced to stop.
No military action can be guaranteed, but giving Ukraine just enough to keep its national nostrils above the waterline guarantees an endless conflict at the cost of Ukrainian blood* and Western treasure.
*In the Russian military tradition, the blood of Russian citizens—particularly prisoners and rural folk—isn’t a factor in Putin’s conduct of the war.
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
