Ramzan Kadyrov and Yevgeny Prigozhin, two of the powerful siloviki, are increasingly becoming a threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin. But for him both are currently untouchable.
Moscow/Munich – Their names are Ramzan Kadyrov or Yevgeny Prigoschin and they are considered powerful, calculating and unscrupulous. We are talking about the so-called siloviki, high-ranking secret service officials and military personnel. Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechens, and Prigozhin, an important head of the paramilitary group Wagner, are actually considered loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is not for nothing that Kadyrov is called “Putin’s bloodhound” and Prigozhin “Putin’s cook” – both have rendered outstanding services to Putin’s interests.
But now both are using the unrest surrounding the war in Ukraine and are trying to massively expand their power and influence. This is what the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW for short, reports in its report on Monday. According to the ISW, Wagner boss Prigoschin is currently setting up several training centers in order to recruit and train more fighters for the Wagner group. However, later the men are not supposed to go to war for Putin, but for Prigozhin. At the end of October, he also began building his own fortifications in Belgorod Oblast.
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The ISW also reports that Prigozhin is stirring up trouble in Russia’s second largest city, Saint Petersburg. There he repeatedly publicly attacks Alexander Beglow, the local governor, even opening his own center in the city with which, according to ISW, he could try to “infiltrate the city’s business community”.
Prigozhin has also increasingly positioned himself in foreign policy in the recent past and presented himself as a strong Russian. Among other things, he claimed on Monday, one day before the midterms in the USA, that he had interfered in the US election campaign words “We interfered, we do it and we will continue to do it”. The Kremlin has been accused of interfering in elections for years, and sanctions have already been imposed on Prigozhin.
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In addition to Prigozhin, Ramzan Kadyrov is also trying to enrich himself from the war in Ukraine. According to the ISW, Putin’s bloodhound is “building business networks in the occupied territories.” In addition, Kadyrov and his men are said to generate enormous sums of money through looting.
According to the ISW, Kadyrov behaves in a similar way to Prigozhin, both would campaign for their own army and thus undermine the Russian military. In contrast to Purin’s troops, Kadyrov’s and Prigozhin’s soldiers have good training and significantly better equipment. According to numerous reports, conditions in the Russian military are catastrophic.
Putin cannot put an end to the machinations of his formerly loyal supporters, he is militarily dependent on them in the Ukraine war, according to the ISW he cannot afford to curtail their power or even punish them. They are currently untouchable, a highly dangerous situation for Putin. In Russia, Prigozhin is already being treated as the next president and thus as Putin’s successor. (fmu)
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