For many years, Prigozhin had been pals with the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
The two both hail from St. Petersburg.
Prigozhin has had his hand in many businesses, including catering.
For a while, he was known as Putin’s chef. In 2012, he reportedly won a contract to provide meals to the Russian military, a gig worth $1.2 billion.
When Putin’s army bogged down in Ukraine, it was to Prigozhin and his mercenary army that Putin turned.
Prigozhin’s mercenaries would do things the Russian’s blanched at.
He was executed in a cellar by someone smashing a sledgehammer into his skull.
The episode was recorded and the video posted on the internet.
Prigozhin praised the artistry of the film, commenting that it ought to have been called “A dog dies a dog’s death.”
On this subject, Prigozhin knows whereof he speaks.
He hoovered up recruits from the dregs of Russia’s prison population—murderers, rapists, sadists of every description, offering them freedom in exchange for becoming cannon fodder for his campaign against Ukraine.
But eventually, Prigozhin prevailed. As of early June, Bakhmut—what was left of it—was essentially in Russia’s hands.
It wasn’t champagne and kisses all around, though.
Prigozhin had fallen out with some of Putin’s top military men, especially the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
Hence that brief show of force that eager journalists in the Western press hailed as a “coup” as Prigozhin’s forces began their march up the road from Ukraine to Moscow.
Why? No one in the Western commentariat knows, though plenty have theories, which they’re happy to dispense in knowing tones.
Was he? Probably not.
But the suggestion offers a nice air of drama.
On Saturday, to the surprise of everyone (and the disappointment of news editors everywhere), Prigozhin said he had “made his point” and that he had struck a deal with his old comrade to cease and desist.
Not all the terms of said deal have been revealed.
No one, or so it’s reported, will face charges.
I note that not facing charges isn’t the same thing as not facing repercussions.
I’m less confident about Prigozhin’s reading habits.
If he doesn’t know “The Prince,” I recommend chapter VII, “Of New Principalities that Are Acquired by Others’ Arms and Fortune.”
Remirro did his job, but he also earned the enmity of the people.
Borgia, not wanting them to think the harsh treatment came from him, decided on a little exhibition.
One morning, the people awoke to find the hated Remirro placed in the piazza at Cesena “in two pieces, with a piece of wood and bloody knife beside him.”
“The ferocity of this spectacle,” Machiavelli comments, “left the people at once satisfied and stupefied.”
Who knows what the ins and out were of the deal that, we are led to believe, saved Putin (for the time being at least) and defanged (ditto) Prigozhin.
First, brutal though Putin may be, he is, in comparison to people like Prigozhin, “a cautious, milksop moderate.”
Second, Hitchens is right that “militant Russian nationalism is a powerful political force that Putin struggles to keep on his side at the best of times.”
These aren’t the best of times, and Prigozhin’s excellent coup adventure, not to mention Putin’s rocky adventure in Ukraine, can’t have endeared Putin to such chthonic forces.
The appearance of weakness is unacceptable.
It’s also unforgivable.
Which means that, political calculus being what it is, Putin, no matter what deal was struck, “surely cannot now leave Prigozhin unpunished.”
I’m grateful, in any case, that I’m not in charge of writing life insurance policies for him or for the rebellious mercenaries under his command.
