A year of war in Ukraine
Prigogine, Simonian and Medvedev: the flight of the Russian falcons
The war in Ukraine has allowed the rise of three hard-line Russian figures: the boss of the Wagner group, the editor-in-chief of RT and an ex-president. Portraits.
Published
From left to right: Yevgeny Prigogine, boss of the paramilitary group Wagner, Margarita Simonian, editor-in-chief of the RT television network and Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president.
Photomontage/Archyde.com/AFP/via REUTERS
One regularly threatens Europe with a nuclear apocalypse at breakfast time. The other claims that Moscow is facing “cannibals” in Ukraine. The third wants to play the fate of Bakhmout in an aerial duel with the Ukrainian president. Once confined to the margins, these outings are now commonplace in Russia, where the offensive in Ukraine has propelled warmongers to the forefront. Here are three figures that illustrate their rise to power.
Prigogine, the Warlord
Once discreet, the boss of the paramilitary group Wagner, Evguéni Prigogine, has become one of the best known faces of the conflict, erecting his mercenaries into a force that he ensures more efficient than an army that he regularly criticizes.
The 61-year-old businessman, a native of St. Petersburg – like Vladimir Putin – where he started by selling hot dogs, has recruited thousands of prisoners to fight in Ukraine, in exchange for a amnesty. Unlike Russian generals who are reputed to be distant and unconcerned about the well-being of their troops, he distributes accolades and medals to his men, whom he harangues with banter.
Its increasing visibility and its criticisms against the army nevertheless irritate Moscow. Tensions erupted last month when Wagner and the general staff separately claimed responsibility for Soledar, near Bakhmout. Prigogine then attacked “those who constantly seek to steal our victories”.
Simonian, the information warrior
The editor-in-chief of the television network RT, Margarita Simonian, has become one of the faces of Moscow’s war in the field of information, in parallel with the offensive in Ukraine. This 42-year-old woman is a regular on evening television shows where she multiplies patriotic tirades to galvanize the population or threaten opponents. “Either we win, or all of this will end badly for all of humanity,” she said last May, also brandishing the specter of the nuclear apocalypse.
The conflict, and the Western sanctions against Moscow that followed, directly affected Margarita Simonian, with the ban RT branches in most Western countries. Not enough to disconcert her: “Each time they banned us, we found other (ways) to continue to broadcast (…) and relay our message.”
As a reward for his efforts, Vladimir Putin awarded him the Order of Honor in December. During the ceremony, she thanked the Russian president for “killing cannibals” in Ukraine.
Medvedev, the neoconvert
Once a rather liberal figure in the Putin universe, ex-President Dmitry Medvedev is now a staunch supporter of the hard way. Not a week goes by without the 57-year-old former leader, currently number two on the Security Council, publishing messages au vitriol on social networks. “The defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war can cause a nuclear war,” he warned in January.
In 2010, he was eating burgers with Barack Obama, then his American counterpart. Today, he calls Joe Biden a “senior grandpa” and all Western leaders “crazy”. Always in the excess, he affirms that Moscow fights in Ukraine “a band of crazy and drugged Nazis”. “People often ask me why my posts are so harsh,” he wrote in June. “Here is the answer: I hate them. They are motherfuckers and degenerates.”
(AFP)