Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian businessman and Putin ally who shot from obscure notoriety to center stage in Russia’s war against Ukraine thanks to his ruthless tactics and deranged prison inmate-recruitment scheme, reportedly has plans to build his own political party.
Sources cited by Meduza on Tuesday—and said to be close to both the Kremlin and Prigozhin—say the notorious Wagner overlord is weighing plans to establish a “conservative movement” that could later be turned into its own party.
The movement, which reportedly plans to take aim at Russia’s elite, is said to have drawn inspiration from none other than Alexei Navalny’s team of anti-corruption campaigners who regularly release investigations targeting Putin’s closest associates.
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But in addition to modeling itself as an “anti-elite” movement, Meduza reports, Prigozhin also hopes to shape the movement out of a thirst for revenge over Russia’s losses in Ukraine.
“He will cultivate a thirst for vengeance, for the military defeats — since, in the end, we’ll win all the same. Who is to blame if we didn’t make it to Kyiv, if we surrendered Kherson? Once again, the elites,” one source was quoted saying of Prigozhin’s vision.
Another source described the movement as a “niche project, designed for the ultra-patriotic majority” that “doesn’t support the authorities on everything and is critical of the elite, officials, and business.”
While it wasn’t immediately clear if Vladimir Putin was personally aware of Prighozin’s political plans, it appears the “patriotic” movement ultimately leads back to him.
It is said to be a joint project between Prigozhin and the close Putin cronies Yury Kovalchuk and Mikhail Kovalchuk, who one source said are hoping to show the Russian president they are big-time “operators” in politics.
“For them, this is a tool for work in the patriotic segment, [as well as] intimidating and demoralizing the elite so that they don’t even think of jumping back from the president,” the source was quoted saying.
The move is said to be part of the reason why Prigozhin has seemed to suddenly relish in the spotlight in recent months, first going public with his role in Wagner after years of denying it, launching his own PR campaign for the group, and becoming unexpectedly vocal in his criticism of Russian defense officials.
Despite being accused of horrific abuses by human rights groups for his prison recruitment scheme, Prigozhin appears to have the full backing of the Kremlin.
Even after a Telegram-channel linked to him released a savage execution video over the weekend of a former Wagner fighter taking a sledgehammer to the head for daring to defect, the Kremlin mostly just looked the other way.
“It’s not our business,” Dmitry Peskov said Monday when asked about the video.
Prigozhin, perhaps emboldened by the Kremlin’s response, then appeared to engage in some high-level trolling, petitioning Russia’s Prosecutor General to investigate the CIA’s supposed involvement in the execution, claiming that the executed man, Yevgeny Nuzhin, had been recruited by the CIA years earlier, had infiltrated Wagner, and then had been taken out by the CIA.
In a statement through the press service of his company, Concord Management, Prigozhin on Tuesday denied having plans to start “any kind of political party or movement.”
“I’m just working and doing what anyone in my place should do,” he said.
