Russian war bloggers’ reactions to news of Putin’s post-rebellion meeting with Prigozhin range from mockery to approval
On July 10, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed reports that the president met with Yevgeny Prigozhin and multiple Wagner Group commanders just days after the mercenary leader’s armed rebellion against the Russian Defense Ministry. “Putin listened to the commanders’ explanations and proposed options for their further employment and combat deployment,” Peskov told journalists. “The commanders gave their version of events, emphasizing that they are committed supporters and soldiers of the head of state and the supreme commander, and expressed that they are ready to continue fighting for the motherland.”
While the majority of “war correspondents” from the Kremlin-backed media chose not to comment on the announcement, some popular war bloggers expressed anger at the news. The independent outlet Agentstvo compiled some of the most notable reactions.
“Will photos of the 35 ‘musicians’ [a nickname for Wagner Group members] making a fool of the president surface online? And, oh yeah, will Putin invite the parents and widows of the pilots killed [in the Wagner Group rebellion] to the Kremlin, or is that something ‘different’ that we ‘don’t understand?’” wrote former separatist commander and current pro-war blogger Igor Girkin. He later likened Putin’s meeting with Prigozhin to a hypothetical meeting between the president and Ukraine’s Azov regiment.
Military blogger Boris Rozhin, who runs the Telegram channel Colonelcassad, said Putin’s meeting with Prigozhin was like if Vladimir Lenin had met with participants of the Tambov Rebellion against the Bolshevik government in 1920–1921. “Lenin listened to the explanations of the leaders of the peasant detachments and suggested options for their further service to Soviet Russia. The peasant detachment leaders gave their version of events and emphasized that they are committed supporters and soldiers of [Lenin] and that they’re ready to fight for the Soviet government. The meeting lasted 3 hours,” Rozhin wrote, mocking Peskov’s statement. (In reality, Lenin demanded the “destruction” of the rebellious peasants; the Red Army used chemical weapons, among other things, to put down the revolt.)
Later, Rozhin moderated his message: “Overall, this is routine ‘damage control.’ The fact that Putin’s meeting with Prigozhin came as a surprise to many people only speaks to the true value of the ‘insider negotiations’ regarding the leadership’s strategy for overcoming the consequences of Prigozhin’s rebellion.”
The pro-war channel MIG Rossii wrote that “nobody has pissed on the heads of the so-called ‘guards’ like Vladimir Putin has.” The post was shared by Alexander Khodakovsky, the Putin-appointed deputy commander of the National Guard in the Russian-annexed “Donetsk Republic,” who added: “My security efforts weren’t and will not be rewarded from above, so a bone in the form of position emotion doesn’t guide my thoughts.” He later added: “If I were MIG, I would replace the verb — it’s the president, after all.” The original post was subsequently edited to read: “Nobody has laughed at the so-called ‘guards’ like Vladimir Putin has.”
The pro-Kremlin political scientist Sergey Markov said he saw the value of Putin’s meeting with Wagner Group. “Having a meeting was the right thing for them to do,” he wrote. “It’s important that Putin understand the political reasons for the rebellion and eliminate them. It’s also important to confirm that the loyalty of the Wagner Group fighters, who are currently considered the best soldiers in the world, lies not with Prigozhin but with Russia. And with President Putin as a symbol of Russia.”
The popular pro-war Telegram channel Readovka published a column about the significance of the meeting, writing that the “rumors about the dissolution of Wagner Group were greatly exaggerated” and that the mercenary group will “soon set out to atone for the rebellion through blood.”