One after the other, the Russian ruling elite falls down the steps or through the windows, and one other star rises. Now speculation is growing that “Putin’s cook” is preparing to depart the kitchen.
He began with a catering company.
It quickly became a part of the inner sanctuary of President Vladimir Putin.
He is now behind the Russian cyberwarriors and numerous web trolls.
And he has his own mercenary army.
Yevgeny Prigozhin is becoming more and more courageous. He raises his Wagner Group mercenaries as Russia’s only fighting force. He is waging a verbal war with key Putin appointees. He is gaining popular support amongst extremists who consider their aging president is failing them.
![Yevgeny Prigozhin upstairs serves food to then Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at the Prigozhin restaurant near Moscow, Russia, November 11, 2011.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/NYPICHPDPICT000002209777.jpg)
That is why some warn that he could find yourself being “worse than Putin.”
But amongst Putin’s kleptocratic (government of thieves) power circle, he is rapidly emerging because the 70-year-old’s almost definitely successor. Or a usurper.
![Photo by Yevgeny Prigozhin.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/newspress-collage-25203732-1672599340862.jpg?1672583065&w=1024&1672583065)
And now it is openly attacking the Kremlin’s military leaders for his or her failed war efforts.
“There’ll be loads of political turmoil after Putin. Everyone will be in a position to participate,” said the representative of the Russian opposition, Lyubov Sobol, in an interview with Foreign Policy.
“But having the resources of a widely known name, media and followers is useful.”
Throwing stones at glass houses
![Photo by Yevgeny Prigozhin.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/NYPICHPDPICT000004446377.jpg)
Prigozhin takes responsibility for the failure of his mercenary guns to capture the strategically insignificant Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. And this despite the undeniable fact that Putin has endowed his private army with the latest Russian tanks, missiles and attack aircraft.
A curse-filled video of frustrated Wagner mercenaries exploded on Russian social media. It depicts soldiers cursing – by name – Valeri Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces appointed by Putin.
They blame him for poor tactical decisions, lack of ammunition and inadequate equipment.
And that is despite not being a part of his chain of command.
But Gerasimov would probably be among the many contenders if Putin were now not president. That makes him a goal.
And maybe that is why Prigozhin was so wanting to make the recording public, to verify the authenticity of the controversial video and to strengthen their complaints.
“The blokes asked me to convey that when you’re sitting in a warm office, it is difficult to listen to about problems on the front line, but once you drag the corpses of your mates day by day and see them for the last time – then deliveries are very much needed,” Prigozhin said in Russian state-controlled media.
But he didn’t stop at such an embarrassing admission of the Kremlin’s failures on the front line.
He issued a threat.
“As for the issues that unfortunately arise at every turn … we are going to solve them by force.”
Could the successor of Russian President Vladimir Putin be even worse?
Power struggles
“Putin’s circle of advisers has narrowed,” CIA chief Bill Burns said in April.
“And in that small circle, questioning his judgment or the virtually mystical belief that he was destined to revive Russia’s influence was never career-promoting.”
But as more and more of Putin’s old cronies step aside, Prigozhin seems to be consolidating his influence.
“He is in search of his place on this latest reality that has arisen after (the start of the war) and which has brought him into conflict with many influential people,” exiled Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky told Radio Free Europe.
![Russian President Vladimir Putin.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/NYPICHPDPICT000004605931.jpg)
He’s perfectly prepared to seek out it.
“People around Putin are protecting themselves,” said Ekaterina Vinokurova, a dismissed member of the Russian human rights council Wall Street Journal.
“They’ve a firm belief that they shouldn’t upset the president.”
But on top of that comes Prigozhin.
Putin’s old guard and Prigozhin’s ultranationalists are increasingly at odds. And they are not afraid to make it public.
Putin, if anything, rewards Prigozhin for this boldness.
Meanwhile, the president is “probably concerned” concerning the ongoing muted support he has received from the oligarchs he delivered to power during his 22-year rule, a US think tank notes Institute for War Studies.
He quotes an interview on Christmas Day by which Putin criticized “individuals who act solely in their very own interests.” He assured that 99.9 percent. of his Russians “is able to sacrifice all the things for the Fatherland.” But the opposite percentages “didn’t behave like true patriots.”
This, ISW says, suggests that Putin is “specializing in those that don’t fully support the war, not on those that do.”
![Photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/NYPICHPDPICT000004597452.jpg)
And that puts Prigozhin in a perfect position.
Praetorian Guard
Along with the catering business, Prigozhin is also behind the Web Research Agency, a web-based troll farm notorious for attempting to influence the 2016 US presidential election. This provides him a strong propaganda tool at home and abroad.
But his control of the Wagner Mercenary Group could give him a bonus in any future power struggle.
This force is loyal to him. Not Putin. Nor the Russian halls of parliament.
In accordance with the Kremlin’s official line, Wagner doesn’t exist.
It is illegal for Russian residents to direct private military groups.
But evidently some are more equal before the law than others.
The boldly signed Wagner headquarters occupies a big a part of the Moscow real estate. And its ownership, character and existence are the topic of on a regular basis public and political discourse.
His mercenaries have long given President Putin an aura of “credible deniability” in international conflicts.
![Prigozhin is also behind the Internet Research Agency, an online troll farm that became famous for trying to influence the 2016 US presidential election.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/01/NYPICHPDPICT000002209680.jpg)
Fought in eastern Ukraine after the 2014 invasion of Crimea under the guise of local insurgents. Supports Kremlin interests in Syria and Libya. He was accused of smuggling diamonds from Africa. And he is involved within the disappearance of three Russian journalists investigating his behavior within the Central African Republic.
But mercenaries have already been largely called upon to support Putin’s failed efforts in Ukraine. And they are not doing so well either.
“He is absolutely not an idiot,” Korotkov said.
“He understands that the Bakhmut case is coming to a conclusion to at least one degree or one other.”
The victory would in fact be advertised as a private victory. But Prigozhin had already used the defeat as a weapon against his political enemies.