1/ So many good insights into Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group in this piece by @Bershidsky. His analysis is, thankfully, free of the endless hype and self-promotion that analysis Prigozhin's role in 🇺🇦 normally centers on. bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
2/ I'm especially impressed by the comparison that Bershidsky draws between Putin's current dealings with Prigozhin and his 1990s-era connections to famed Leningrad Vladimir Kumarin who @CatherineBelton chronicled in her book "Putin's People."
3/ Acc to Bershidsky, the Prigozhin phenomenon is both a manifestation of the degradation of the Putin system as it deals with severe stress & under-performance in 🇺🇦 AND a reminder that (this is key, to my mind) thugs for hire like Prigozhin are still on the outside looking in.
4/ As I wrote in ACCIDENTAL CZAR, one of the pivotal aspects of identity is that he's a true believer in a strong state (gosudarstvennik).
When people like Prigozhin (or Kumarin before him), can be helpful, do errands for the state, etc Putin is all too happy to enlist them.
5/ Prigozhin and his ilk relentlessly try to look like hotshots on social media and TV because they want a claim on the enormous resources and patronage that "official" parts of the state like the Russian military can lay claim to.
6/ With 50K men in Ukraine and a monthly budget of $100 million, Wagner is clearly moving up in the world. But, as my colleague @Stanovaya explained:
The last paragraph of Bershidsky's piece is especially memorable: I only wish that there was an image by @boxbrown to accompany it! END
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