Russia did not face an imminent security threat to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary outfit, said in a bombshell video posted on social media Friday. “The Armed Forces of Ukraine were not going to attack Russia with the NATO bloc,” Prigozhin explained in the half-hour tirade released by his press service. “The Russian Defense Ministry is deceiving the public and the president,” he added.
Is he fucked though? A lot of generals and other army higher ups got killed, a lot of oligarchs jumped out of the windows, almost everyone who posed any threat to Putin is now gone. At the same time those who showed support got suddenly rich. The amount of Russian billionaires has increased five fold during the first year of the war.
If anything, this war has helped Putin to clean up government and olygarchy, and ensure that his rule is unchallenged. Putin is not fucked, he’s golden.