‘You can stick to making meatballs’: Sverdlovsk governor tells Prigozhin to stop meddling in regional politics
After Wagner Group founder Evgeny Prigozhin attacked several of Russia’s regions for what he described as “openly shitting” on Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, Sverdlovsk Governor Evgeny Kuyvashev publicly told Prigozhin to “stick to making meatballs” and stop meddling in regional politics.
Prigozhin singled out Kuyvashev’s region, with a capital in Yekaterinburg, together with Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, for the way they bury the troops killed in Ukraine without military honors. He also said he cannot tell “whose side St. Petersburg is fighting on,” and that governors act like “masters” of their regions, turning them into a “total free-for-all” of bureaucratic corruption.
“A free-for-all, Evgeny,” replied Kuyvashev,
is that you’d stick your nose into regional governance and cadre policy. If every entrepreneur who earns a living on school breakfasts tries to run the country, we’re not going to get very far. Everyone should be doing their job. You can stick to making meatballs and boiling spaghetti, and we are going to make decisions about our regions.
Evgeny Prigozhin’s government catering contracts expanded dramatically since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In 2022, his various catering businesses won $1.24 billion worth of tenders.
