Wagner Group founder Evgeny Prigozhin visited the nationalist writer and politician Zakhar Prilepin in a hospital in Nizhny Novgorod. Prigozhin stopped in Nizhny Novgorod after travelling to Yekaterinburg, Vladivostok, and Novosibirsk. Prilepin has been in the hospital since May, when he was the target of an assassination attempt.
Prilepin told the publication Daily Storm that he spoke to Prigozhin about “Russia’s fate and the essence of power” during his visit. Prilepin said, “we exchanged extremely frank thoughts — that Ukrainians didn’t just learn how to fight, but also want to fight. For now, it remains a mystery what exactly our country thinks about this.”
According to Daily Storm, Prigozhin gifted Prilepin a “spare skull” (they didn’t specify what this meant), while Prilepin gave Prigozhin a “hand-embroidered case for a sledgehammer.” Prilepin and Prigozhin’s representatives did not comment on this.
On June 1, Prilepin’s Telegram channel made a large post dedicated to Prigozhin’s birthday, in which Prigozhin is referred to as “a symbol of the potential for independent politics and independent political expression.”
The post also mentions that Prigozhin “brought the Russian language and humour back into politics,” and also “returned Bakhmut and faith in Russians’ invincibility.” The post also mentioned Wagner Group’s work in Africa: “Having worked in Algeria, Libya, Congo, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Central African Republic, Sudan and so on, Prigozhin showed what ‘Russia without borders’ or with new geopolitical borders really means.”
