Prigozhin Video: Wagner Chief Contradicts ruSSian Propaganda

June 23, 2023March 10, 2026

Today the Prigozhin video appeared on many resources — true, in varying degrees of editing. There’s no point laying out the full version of Wagner PMC boss speech video that surfaced precisely today. Those interested will easily find it themselves. If someone wants to listen to the “primary source”, keep in mind that the 50+ second video is a heavily cut version. Look for a longer one — there will be something to watch there too. In general, something like this didn’t surprise us, although precisely this format of presentation slightly surprised. The thing is, Prigozhin told almost the whole truth about the beginning of the war’s full-scale phase and about the war in general — albeit from his own bandit point of view. The Prigozhin video says what russian propaganda never would.

No Reasons for the Meatgrinder

In particular, Prigozhin said there were no reasons in principle to start the meatgrinder on February 24, 2022. According to him, “Ukraine shelled Donbas” — stupid fairy tales for persons who had no intellect from birth or degreased it with ethyl alcohol or some heavier drugs.

Moreover, he told that in Donbas all these 8 years it was the same thing: a number of authorized persons robbed it. This included the famous comrade Kurochkin, as well as many other collaborators. Shoigu with his clan pursued the same goal, as well as a number of russian criminal authorities. They relied in this matter on pootin’s godfather and Ukraine’s traitor Viktor Medvedchuk. The military wanted awards, ranks, honor, and preferences for themselves and cash for their clans. The criminals simply planned to continue robbing.

Well, for the full-scale invasion to happen specifically, russian officials told the führer some scary stories. That is, according to Prigozhin, precisely officials deceived pootin into dragging him into the scam called “SMO”. Now they deceive the führer by telling him about events on the front that absolutely don’t correspond to reality.

The Boomerang Coming Home

In Prigozhin’s opinion, the situation looks not just bad, as anyone who owns real information can understand — but much worse. Now it’s no longer about “victory” or achieving some goals, but about the situation boomeranging back to the Rabid Federation. Now they need to think not about war in Ukraine, but how to save the Swamps¹ from collapse. Prigozhin’s speech was long and expressive, but we laid out the essence in several paragraphs.

Here’s what’s interesting. Judging by how Prigozhin assessed the conditions of the full-scale invasion’s beginning, its current state, and prospects — it seems his assessments are close to assessments Western experts give. Also, with certain reservations, this resembles how we ourselves imagine this picture.

Who Stands Behind Him?

So, you can’t view Prigozhin’s speech as his personal creativity or beliefs. The matter here is not so much in Prigozhin as such, but in that leaders in the Swamps are a great rarity in general. After a quarter century of the Kremlin dwarf’s rule, they’re either destroyed, exiled, or in prison. Everyone in sight, including Prigozhin, must have certain force behind them — because without it, such a speech wouldn’t get recorded to the end. The video’s author would have banally “died of a heart attack” or “fallen from a balcony,” as is customary with the FSB.

Prigozhin has some reserve of charisma and can go to a certain escalation level. But after this level, charisma isn’t enough. He needs to rely not on a personality or organization, but on a certain well-formed force. This force must have enough resources to fight on equal terms with large clans close to pootin. Who constitutes this force, we don’t undertake to judge. But one thing is clear — Prigozhin isn’t a fool to climb onto horns simply because he’s such a cheerful and bald guy.

The Signal to the West

Now we can move to the essence of his speeches. He broadcasts assessments of the situation with war strongly resembling how the sane world assesses it. That is, someone, through Prigozhin’s mouth, sends a signal to the West. The signal: there’s an influential group of persons who generally understand what’s happening the same way the normal world does. Therefore, they agree with those prospects that this world already indicated more than once. It also shows there’s a force ready to seize power in the Swamps so chaos doesn’t break out there — chaos Prigozhin already talked about more than once or twice.

Prigozhin himself now counts on his own dividends. But how much he’ll be needed with this or that situation development — that’s a second question. Right now, with very high probability, we observe preparation of that very process in which the toad and viper participate. This means it doesn’t matter what Prigozhin tells there now. What matters is that the spiders in this jar stirred not just like that. The Prigozhin video reveals more about internal russian power struggles than about the war itself — and that makes it valuable intelligence.

¹Swamps – an ironic name for Russia, emphasizing decay, stagnation, and filth. The Commander of the USF, Robert Browdie, and most soldiers use this word.