Putin’s acquaintance Yevgeny Prigozhin pardoned fighters and scolded celebrating Russians. Behind it are political ambitions.
“You did more than you had to. You no longer have any guilt before the Fatherland,” says the bald man in camouflage suit. He laughs. “You have been given a new life. Now you have money, fame – and freedom.” It is Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Russian private army Wagner. Prigozhin stands in front of maybe two dozen men. They are former prisoners, convicted criminals, whom Prigozhin has been recruiting from Russian prisons for combat use in Ukraine since the fall. The 61-year-old promised the inmates freedom at the time. And Prigozhin now keeps his promise. He pardons the returnees, one after the other, just like that, without a legal decision, and there is also a Wagner medal. Among the men is Dmitry Karyagin, who was sentenced to fourteen and a half years in prison in 2016. He killed his grandmother with a hammer.
Videos of the disturbing scene were released by Russian news agencies earlier this week. The staging expresses the brutality, arbitrariness and lawlessness unleashed by the Russian attack on Ukraine. What applies is the law of violence. The man who first had prisoners kidnapped from the Russian prison and is now letting them go is not an official representative of the Russian state. Private armies are also banned by law in Russia. Actually. But Prigozhin, originally known as a gastro entrepreneur in St. Petersburg, has the backing of the Kremlin; he is personally acquainted with President Vladimir Putin. In the Ukraine and other theaters of war, he has a free hand for sensitive assignments.