2023-08-30 09:21:16
Three days ago, the Russian authorities confirmed the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin († 62). The head of the mercenary group “Wagner” died in a plane crash. The military leader of the mercenary group, ex-secret service officer Dmitry Utkin, and other leading figures of “Wagner” were also killed.
Experts don’t believe it was an accident, but an attack on Prigozhin, who rehearsed the uprising against the Kremlin in June. But was the death of the group of mercenary leaders just the beginning? The Russian opposition politician and former Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov (43) believes that the next powerful military leader in Russia will soon disappear.
Accordingly, the Kremlin opponent assumes that after Prigozhin’s death, the Russian power apparatus will target other powerful personalities who threaten his existence. Specifically: Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov (46), known as “Putin’s bloodhound”.
The reason: Kadyrov was long considered an ally of Prigozhin and supported him in his campaign against the Russian Ministry of Defense. As a former anti-Kremlin rebel in the Chechen war, many in the Russian power apparatus are still uncomfortable with him. He once boasted that he had killed Russian soldiers in previous years.
So far, Putin has managed to integrate the Chechen Kadyrov into the Russian power structures. But Putin has stopped “playing the arbiter between different Kremlin groups,” Gudkov told the anti-Kremlin channel Nextra, adding: “To be more precise, he can no longer cope with this role. The conflicts penetrate outwards.”
The Russian opposition figure predicts that Kadyrov could face the same fate as Prigozhin. “There will also be a conflict with him, I’m sure. Kadyrov is one of the greatest opponents of Russian statehood.” He adds: «Kadyrov has his own army, which is well prepared. And Kadyrov has a great deal of influence outside of the security apparatus.”
Gudkov goes on to say that Kadyrov is a thorn in the side of the so-called “siloviki”, i.e. the insiders of the Russian security apparatus, and that there will soon be an open conflict between them and the Chechen. There is also a risk of escalation between the Russian FSB secret service and the Ministry of Defense. “The inner tension is increasing.”
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