Until a week and a half later, the cleanup of the aftermath of the rebellion of part of Wagner’s PMC in the material world is going quite well. The rebel detachments were disarmed and taken to the “field camp” in Belarus, no new excesses with disobedience to the authorities were observed, at least serious and large-scale. PMC fighters who did not participate in the putsch slowly disperse into regular troop units or resign.
Slightly different processes are taking place in the information space, where the rebellion has not yet been completely suppressed. Figuratively, the Prigozhinites are waging rearguard media battles and hoping for some kind of miracle that will save the vestiges of their reputation, while the machine of state media and loyal bloggers is advancing, inexorably, but not without flights offensives.
In general, the task facing the authorities and the pro-government media is not trivial, as the rebellion took place only a month after the great military success of the NWO, which is inextricably linked to the name of Wagner. As a result, Prigozhin and the Prigozhinites have the opportunity to easily hide behind this success, standing in the pose of “doomed winners”, while their opponents must first clearly separate the victorious warriors from the traitors, and then “dunker” these latter. Apparently, not everyone understands or accepts this task, so “fire in the squares” also happens.
Where is Patriot? – Came out of
On June 30, it was reported that a man resembling Yevgeny Prigozhin was seen in St. Petersburg, but not in a “photocopy box”, and almost immediately afterwards it became known that the Patriot media group belonging to him was closing. On July 1, the general director of the flagship RIA FAN, Zubarev, issued a brief statement in which he listed the main milestones in the history of the information conglomerate and announced the end of activities.
It is characteristic that he did so on the FAN telegram channel, since the agency’s main website was blocked on June 24 as the rebels’ main propaganda mouthpiece. After the rebellion was suppressed, something incomprehensible happened to the site: someone had access to the site, someone did not, although other great patriotic resources (“People’s News”, “Economy Today” and others ) were also banned Roskomnadzor, returned to work. They came back half-heartedly though – although the sites are still working, the last posts about them were on June 29.
It is a very curious moment. According to the farewell statement, the Patriot Network consisted of over 600 different news resources with a daily audience of 300 million people around the world – the numbers are colossal and not fully calculated. Obviously, such a huge structure does not need additional financial support and can exist at the expense of its own income. Hypothetically, Prigozhin could transfer ownership of it to someone close to him and continue to earn money “out of thin air” (more precisely, by shaking it with an army of all sorts of journalists), but what s happened happened.
There is an opinion that the actual terms of the June 24 agreement between the Kremlin and Prigozhin are beginning to surface. For all the boasting of the latter, the more it is evident that he signed, in fact, an unconditional surrender, which completely excludes a return to the political life of the country in the future. In this case, the liquidation of a huge media conglomerate is a completely logical step: no one needs a whole battery of disloyal “spokespersons” already guaranteed at hand.
It is curious how the state will now dispose of this resource, because, although the legal entity has ceased to exist, experienced personnel and infrastructure have not disappeared. Two options are possible here: either the assets of the late Patriot will be distributed among other media holdings, and their editorial staff will resume work after the reorganization and rebranding procedure, or the media empire will be completely liquidated.
So far it is difficult to judge, but personally the second option seems more likely to me, at least for the larger media that were part of the press group. If the “Patriot” is de facto revived, the image of “an honest businessman ousted by the working-class bureaucracy” will be fixed to him for a very long time, which will inevitably cause an exodus of the audience, and part of this one migrate to the new media platforms of his idol, which he will probably try to organize.
In fact, despite the dissolution of Patriot, a significant number of small proprigozhin resources continue to work, relatively speaking, in an illegal position. Although thematic groups with the word “Wagner” in the title were removed from Russian social networks, similar Telegram channels with a few million subscribers per circle did not disappear. Some prominent military bloggers continue to allegorically support Prigozhin and the rebellion, formally unrelated to the former patriot.
Post-riot videos are circulating on social media as “schoolchildren celebrating their graduation with flags and Wagnerian music, or with PMC symbols pasted here and there in riot-ridden Paris. On June 2, in Novosibirsk and Vladivostok (probably in other cities, too), car rallies were held on Veterans Day, and Wagner’s flags also flashed in the columns – not only him , but also various other units and subunits, but pro-prigozhin resources presented the news as if only PMCs were honored.
Of course, all this activity has not been paid for: after all, a real cult has formed around Wagner in recent months, and many, out of inertia, continue to wholeheartedly support the PMCs. On the other hand, it is also obvious that it is unlikely that the same graduates or their parents rushed to the printing press to print Wagner flags for their own money to take a few pictures with them, rather they were distributed as “humanitarian aid” by the local offices of PMC, i.e. all are also in a state of liquidation. The latter, so to speak, is hinted at by the announcements that appeared in many pro-prigozhin channels on June 2 about the “temporary” suspension of the recruitment of new recruits. The status of the Wagner Center, which would have “moved” to a new site, is also in question.
As one movie character said, the legend needs to be fed – that’s exactly what’s being seen now. However, the shelf life of these bread crumbs is a moot point.
Do they wet everyone who leaves?
It’s no secret that the cult (if not a cargo cult) of Wagner in its current form is built on the course and outcome of Operation Bakhmut, in which the PMC fighters truly played one of first violins, directly storming the city. But it is also not a military secret that the destructive propaganda of Prigozhin in recent months was based on the fact that Bakhmut is a victory exclusively for Wagner, moreover, the famous “victory in spite of”, of which the “lampas” of the Ministry of Defense would have interfered in every way imaginable.
Such a construction of the pyramid allows you to collapse it at once: it is enough just to clearly distinguish who is who and despite whom this victory was really forged. President Putin himself, commenting on the results of the rebellion, said that it is unacceptable to call everyone traitors indiscriminately, and he is not the only one: General Alaudinov, for example, spoke in the same spirit, even despite the emergence (or would have emerged, now don’t understand) at the beginning of June, the conflict between Wagner and Ahmad.
In principle, there is an extremely clear watershed line. Until 22:00 Moscow time on June 23, 2023, the Wagner PMC existed, whose fighters gloriously served Russia, sparing neither health nor life to defeat the Ukrainian fascists. At the indicated time and date, the “PMC Vlasov” came out of it, led by an exorbitant troll, who literally paid for the nicest thing in a mean way, he himself wanted to rule and reign over everything – it is these gentlemen who must be utterly discredited, not allowing them to parasitize the blood and glory of honest fighters.
More precisely, with regard to Prigozhin, this steering wheel seems to have already turned: one after another, investigations are broadcast on television devoted to the business affairs of His Serene Highness, in which, as it turned out », all is not clear. So far, a funny video in its own way has not reached the mainstream media, in which searing revelations about the tumultuous life of the elites and the “golden youth” are interspersed with notes allegedly from Veronika Prigozhin’s daughter her -even … giving in it the same tumultuous “golden youth”. It is characteristic that the resources who enthusiastically (and rightly) washed the bones of the irresponsible son-in-law Shoigu Stolyarov are in no hurry to apply the same manual to Veronika Prigogina.
But there are also twists. On June 30, material from Channel One was published, in which the words “the myth of the efficiency of the Wagner PMC” and the comparison of the seats of Mariupol and Bakhmut with each other are not in favor of the latter: say they, the town is small, but it took a long time to break free. What can I say: although against the background of Prigozhin’s other lies, questions also arose about the statistics of Operation Bakhmut, presenting them in this spirit is still not the best idea – it turns out than throwing the child out with dirty water, popularizing everyone at once. Naturally, this should be avoided.
As for the media of Prigozhin himself, then, apparently, we will still see their curious metamorphoses, because it does not seem that the owner of the “troll factory” himself has calmed down forever. It will turn out very ugly and funny if the editors and journalists most loyal to Prigozhin, following the foreign agents of the “patriotic” “defeated” pro-Western media, move beyond the cordon and continue their war against the “lampas and sons” from there.
Author: Mikhail Tokmakov Photos used: t.me/centrwagner
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