Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin, whose popularity rating soared before his short-lived rebellion, is threatened with political erasure, the modern-day equivalent of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s purging of enemies from official photographs.
The Kremlin’s powerful propaganda apparatus is in overdrive working to discredit Prigozhin and to project President Vladimir Putin as the wise leader who saved Russia from civil war and proved the “maturity” and strength of his state, just in time for summer vacation.
In the aftermath of the Wagner rebellion, which exposed deep fractures caused by Putin’s war in Ukraine, the Kremlin appears to have three main goals. First, is to demolish Prigozhin and quash his damaging but true assertion that there was never a Russian security concern to justify the Ukraine invasion. Second, is to increase repressions and shore up the regime. And third is to rebrand Putin’s lately uninspiring image to cast him as a dynamic, unifying figure.
Prigozhin said he staged the rebellion because the Defense Ministry and Kremlin tried to subvert him and Wagner by forcing them to sign contracts with the military. His approval rating fell sharply after the rebellion, but it was still at a relatively impressive 29 percent — far too high for a regime that tolerates no dissent.
“And now let’s look at the palace,” Petrov continued dramatically. “So a palace, a helicopter, cash, cars loaded with cash, dollars, rubles, a palace, a helicopter, 600 million rubles. A fighter for justice had 600 million rubles!” Since the rebellion, Prigozhin has lost access to lucrative state catering contracts and had closed the media empire and troll farm he used to boost his image.
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