It all started with those Discord leaks. We only got to see a few pages, mostly the uninteresting and poorly-sourced claims on battle casualties that were photoshopped, probably by Donbass Devushka, initially. Now though, establishment media is saying that hitherto unknown and unrevealed pages in the leaks indicate that Prigozhin is a traitor and working with Kiev.
In late January, with his mercenary forces dying by the thousands in a fight for the ruined city of Bakhmut, Wagner Group owner Yevgeniy Prigozhin made Ukraine an extraordinary offer.
Prigozhin said that if Ukraine’s commanders withdrew their soldiers from the area around Bakhmut, he would give Kyiv information on Russian troop positions, which Ukraine could use to attack them. Prigozhin conveyed the proposal to his contacts in Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, with whom he has maintained secret communications during the course of the war, according to previously unreported U.S. intelligence documents leaked on the group-chat platform Discord.
Remember when those same documents revealed that the MoD’s plan was to use proxies to attack Prigozhin to avoid a direct confrontation? You should because I wrote about it here:
What is happening here seems to me to be a case of the Western and Russian Deep States turning lemons into lemonade. Now that they have people’s attention and the media reporting on the leaks, it affords the spooks an opportunity to start controlling the release of content and either tailoring it to suit their needs or simply making it up as they go along.
Also, when I heard the allegations, my first instinct was that this had to be, at least partially, part of some Russian Deep State plot. Later in the day, Prigozhin announced that he felt the same way.
In his opinion, the publication is explained by the fact that "they will try to pour as much shit on me as they can." Prigozhin called the publication a hoax and said that it was either journalists who decided to “publish hype” or “comrades from Rublyovka who once sold some oil” behind it.
“Instead of doing nonsense, connect Lesha Navalny to the Internet. He, *****, will paint such dragons for you that it will keep you busy. Moreover, he will talk not only about me, but about all the comrades from Rublyovka. Therefore, no one is trying to replace Lesha Navalny, you are doing it badly, he did it much more professionally,” said Prigozhin.[Here he is trying to say that he shouldn’t be compared to Navalny, an opposition figure, and that they are trying to make him out to be a Navalny, basically, as a plot to have him arrested for treason.]
It makes sense to me that the two Deep States are in communication and looking for ways to eke out some profit or political gain amidst the chaos of the Not-War. I just don’t see any reason for them not to do so. Furthermore, we know that this was happening all throughout the Cold War, and, nowadays, there isn’t even a supposed ideological conflict between East and West to cause friction. Of course, I would argue that there actually wasn’t one during the fake Cold War either, but that is an essay for another time.
We could leave the story there for now, but more information has come to light that changes everything that we thought we knew about the situation within the power elite in Russia.
Yes, really.
Strelkov has revealed that someone has supplied him with information on who Prigozhin’s backers are in the Kremlin.
He says that it is Sergei Kuriyenko, who I had not heard of as being all that powerful before, and that, more importantly, behind Kuriyenko, a far more notorious man by the name of Yuri Kovalchuk, who everyone has heard of because he is often referred to as “Putin’s personal banker” who stands behind the Prigozhin project.
This is quite alarming, but also not entirely unexpected.
We knew it had to be someone and now, at least, we are starting to get a clearer picture of the factions vying for power in post-Not-War Russia. This, of course, casts a much darker light on the whole Prigozhin phenomenon.
But, if I’m going to keep digging my own grave and making enemies with my writing, I sure as hell am not going to do it without that 1k stack in sweet Substack money secured. If you want to join me in my deep dive into the Kremlin inner circle, you’re going to have to cough up the dough. What, did you think I was some running some kind of Communist blog here? Giving everything away for free? No sir, we operate on the good old-fashioned American principles that were enshrined in the Constitution and the Magna Carta and the Dollar Menu. Cash on hand or get the hell off my property. I mean it. Stop moralizing at ME because YOU are stingy and just support my work. I’m not greedy, you are just cheap. See how that works? Two can play at the moralizing game and I’m better at it than you anyways.
Anyways, please and thank you very much. See you on the other side.