From beyond the grave, Yevgeny Prigozhin has had one of the main aims of his attempted coup fulfilled. Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu, one of the Wagner chief’s hate figures, has been removed from his post.
The bitter complaint from Prigozhin and his ally at the time, the Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, was that Shoigu and his bureaucrats were among those culpable for the shortcomings that saw Ukraine claw back land lost in Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
Shoigu’s sacking was greeted with elation by Russia’s warhawks, the “Z-Patriots”, with Konstantin Malofeyev, describing it as pure “Easter joy” (Orthodox Easter took place last week) and declaring that the move showed that, for president Putin, defence was “becoming the absolute priority of all state policy”.
The first deputy prime minister, Andrey Belousov, taking over from Shoigu, has a background in economics, and one interpretation is that this means that Russia is going full steam towards becoming a “war economy” and the Kremlin is preparing for the longest haul in the conflict.
This story is from the May 14, 2024 edition of The Independent.
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This story is from the May 14, 2024 edition of The Independent.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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