Prigozhin suggests that Russia follow North Korea's example so the country isn't "screwed up"
Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Group, has said that Russia should get ready for a difficult war, introduce martial law and announce new waves of mobilisation, as well as "closing all borders" as in North Korea, so that the country is not lost.
Source: Meduza, citing Yevgeny Prigozhin in an interview with pro-Kremlin political strategist Konstantin Dolgov
Quote: "We are now in a state where we could just screw Russia up. So we have to introduce martial law, we have to announce new waves of mobilisation, we have to get everyone we can producing ammunition.
We have to stop wasting money, stop building new roads and new infrastructure, and work only for the war.
Russia needs to live like North Korea for a certain number of years, close all the borders, stop playing nice, bring all our kids back from abroad and work our asses off. Then we’ll see some results."
Details: Prigozhin is outraged that Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu's son-in-law is "swanning around aimlessly, while his daughter’s opening Kronstadt forts" instead of spending money on ammunition.
He said that while the children of the elite show off their carefree lives of luxury, "ordinary people’s children are coming back in zinc [coffins], torn to pieces" because of the so-called "special operation".
Quote: "This split [in society] could end like it did in 1917, in a revolution, when the soldiers rise up first, and then their loved ones rise up.
And don’t think there are [just] hundreds. There are tens of thousands of relatives [whose loved ones] have been killed. There will probably be hundreds of thousands. We can’t get away from that. And it will all come to an end in one moment with a St Bartholomew's Day massacre. The luxurious life of the scions of the elite will end on people’s pitchforks.
My advice to the elite of the Russian Federation is: bring your f**king kids back, send them to war, and when you go to their funerals, when you start burying them, people will say, ‘Now it’s all fair’."
More details: The Wagner Group founder does not believe that the war started by Russia will end with an optimistic scenario in which Europe and America tire of the "Ukrainian conflict", then China sits everyone down at the negotiating table and "we agree that everything we have grabbed [the Russians in Ukraine – ed.] is ours, and everything we didn’t grab is not ours."
According to Prigozhin's pessimistic scenario, the Ukrainians are given missiles, they train their troops, continue the offensive and try to counterattack.
Quote: "Perhaps the counteroffensive will be successful in some places, they will restore the borders to [the way they were in] 2014, and this could easily happen. They will attack Crimea, they’ll try to blow up the Crimean Bridge and cut off the supply routes. So we need to get ready for a difficult war."
Background: Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as Putin's chef, supported the war launched by the Kremlin against Ukraine and sent Wagner Group mercenaries to the front. However, he regularly criticises Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov.
On 14 April, Yevgeny Prigozhin advised the Russian authorities to declare the so-called "special military operation" over and concentrate on consolidating its hold on the occupied territories of Ukraine.
On 20 May, Prigozhin announced that Bakhmut had been completely captured and the Ukrainian city would be shortly handed over to regular Russian troops. He is planning to withdraw Wagner fighters from the front line for approximately two months for reconstitution.
The Ukrainian authorities insist that the battle for Bakhmut continues. Russian attacks and assaults have left the city in ruins.
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