As early as April 16, and perhaps earlier, Wagner Group CEO Yevgeny Prigozhin, on his Telegram channel, called on Putin to end the special military operation in Ukraine. He said on that date that the SMO had achieved its goals, which he identified as killing Ukrainian military forces, establishing a land corridor down to Crimea, and occupying territory. Therefore, Putin should declare the goals achieved, and “end the operation.”
Then, on May 24, a month ago, an interview with Prigozhin was published, by Russian journalist Konstantin Dolgov—the interview was apparently done on May 23—in which Prigozhin took the opposite tack, saying that the SMO had failed. He also included plenty of praise for the qualities and weaponry of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The interview was full of attacks on the Russian “elites” and statements like: “We are at such a point that we could f**king lose Russia—that is the main problem.... We need to impose martial law.” (https://t.me/s/superdolgov/9446 )
In the last days, Alexander Mercouris, in his June 25 internet report, stated that Prigozhin “made statements to the effect that there was no Ukrainian plan to attack Donbass in February 2022, contrary to what Putin was saying. He also said that the conflict in Ukraine never really existed, that the movement in Donbass for independence wasn’t a real one, or words to that effect. He made it appear as if the whole affair had been orchestrated by the Russian Ministry of Defense and various oligarchs in Russia, in order basically to plunder the Donbass and also in terms of the conflict that was triggered in February 2022, he said that all of this happened because Shoigu and the military leadership fooled Putin into thinking that an attack on Donbass was happening, and that, in fact, really the whole conflict was staged by Shoigu, who wanted … to be promoted to the rank of Marshal. He also said that it would have been perfectly possible to negotiate with Zelenskyy, to agree to some compromise with Zelenskyy, and that is what Russia would have done.”
