Yevgeny #Prigozhin, founder and main financial backer of the #Wagner Group, was once Vladimir #Putin's best buddy. Lately, not so much: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-18-2023
Their interests are fundamentally at odds. Both want to win the #war, of course. But Putin wants a lasting #conquest, with steady incorporation of #Ukrainian territory into a new #Russian Empire, and the people pledging their fealty to him as #Tsar. Prigozhin just wants his bully boys to kill people and break things, and come home with armfuls of loot. What's left of #Ukraine afterward isn't his concern. It might even be *better* from his perspective if the wreckage smolders as an object lesson.
Make no mistake, Prigozhin wants to be Tsar too. But Putin wants to be Vladimir the Great. Prigozhin is aiming for Yevgeny the Terrible. More than one Grand Duke of #Moscow was a lucky soldier—
Neither is any less evil or less delusional than the other: Ukraine very definitely gets a vote. Putin and Prigozhin are united in their conviction of Russian superiority.
Right now, the Russian war effort needs Wagner, so Putin's soft-pedaling. He probably knows he can't do that for long. Prigozhin should remember that when you come at the king, you best not miss.
Me, I'll just be making popcorn. Whoever loses, we win.
@john If he thought he could survive it, he might. One final wave of destruction to make the point, then pull back and concentrate on Making Russia Great Again. Maybe with a dose of stab-in-the-back about how Wagner was winning the war, but Putin made it impossible.
@medigoth Do you think Prigozhin would end the war if he became Tsar – blow it off as a stupid Putin mistake?