The political leader of the failed uprising died already in June
It turns out that such logically complete endings happen not only in movies, but also in real life. June 23, 2023 – the beginning of the uprising of Yevgeny Prigozhin. August 23, 2023 – Death of Yevgeny Prigozhin in a mysterious plane crash. What is it – mysticism, coincidence, coincidence or “a well-prepared accident”? If you remember the old joke, anyone who thought of himself as a noble virologist in the spring of 2020 is now being retrained as an equally noble conspiracy theorist.
But I recommend not to guess, not to create versions and not to dive into the world of “conspiracy theories”. I propose instead to talk about what is completely understandable and obvious – the political consequences of the death of the leader of the June Uprising.
Yevgeny Prigozhin. A still from the video.
A few weeks ago I wrote that Yevgeny Prigozhin is a living refutation of the famous words of the court poet of Queen Elizabeth I of England, Sir John Harrington, who said in the 17th century: “A rebellion cannot end in success. Otherwise, it has a different name.
Further development of the event made its own adjustments to this rating. Who and what is behind these “fixes”? I'm sure the West will point to the Kremlin. I am also sure that the Kremlin, of course, based on the results of the investigation, will point to a provocation by the same West (and who else, if not the West or official Kiev, would benefit from trying to stir up the situation in Russia?) or revenge by one of Yevgeny Prigozhin's many enemies.
And finally, the third point, which I am absolutely sure of: it is the version of the Russian authorities that the country and society will accept. However, the Western version of the authorities of the Russian Federation, I suspect, will not convince. However, who in official Moscow now cares what the West thinks and says about some of its actions? Certainly not Vladimir Putin. The internal Russian audience is important for the President of the Russian Federation. And she, both the country's political elite and ordinary citizens, will certainly draw the right conclusions from what happened.
And these conclusions, in my opinion, are as follows. At the end of June 2023, a fundamentally new period began in Russian politics. And already at the end of August 2023, this “fundamentally new period” (now only in this way) ended.
The crash site of Prigozhin's plane was closed by security forces: night shots
Look for a video on the topic
Yevgeny Prigozhin owed his fantastic career rise entirely to the vertical of power. But at some stage (at what stage, we don't know yet) he forgot about it and felt himself to be a figure at least equal in size to this vertical. I repeat what has already been said more than once: the compromise that ended with the June coup of Yevgeny Prigozhin saved the country from the most terrible, monstrous and bloody scenario. But despite this, the attempted rebellion still did not balance the system of government.
A vertical of power can only be built on strict unity of command and general acceptance of the authority of whoever stands at the top of the power pyramid. If this is not the case, then there is no vertical of power. Yes, there is no vertical line – it is about the political viability of the entire country, its unity, its ability to function in the face of unprecedented pressure from the West.
In the West itself, in a way, it was perfectly understood. On July 22 of this year, the head of British intelligence MI6 Sir Richard Moore gave an extremely rare interview for the holder of his position to the media – Politico.eu.
In a speech before this interview, Sir Richard recommended that any Russians who are “disillusioned” with Putin's policies should “join their hands with ours” (that is, become agents of British intelligence). Such a crude recruitment approach was motivated by two theses: “your secrets will always be completely safe with us” and the weakness of the Russian political system, which, according to Sir Richard Moore, was revealed by the Prigozhin Rebellion.
The head of British intelligence: “We saw that the first, very visible cracks that appeared inside one of the parties to the conflict were not in Ukraine, not in NATO, not in the EU, not in the relationship between the UK and the US or anything like that. The first cracks we saw appeared in the Russian system.
Now these “cracks” are gone. They left with Yevgeny Prigozhin, a man who had escaped punishment for an attempted coup but could not escape his fate. And yes, I insist on this term, which in this context only seems metaphysical.
Of course, the perpetrators of Prigozhin's death are very specific people whose names we may sometimes know and may never know. But at the same time, these “specific people” are just agents of fate, the logic of the development of world political processes (I apologize for the pathos, but here, it seems to me, it is very difficult to do without it).
Yevgeny Prigozhin – the man who tried to turn back history, to return Russia to a new round of development to some equivalent of the 90s, when “strong personalities” (sometimes field commanders, sometimes cunning courtiers) were stronger than the central government . Did he have a real chance to make it? It probably doesn't matter anymore. The main thing is that history has not turned around. And soon Prigogine himself entered history. Such is his fate, the creator of which is certainly 90% himself.
From cook to military leader: how Yevgeny Prigozhin changed over the years
View related photo gallery
< /p>