Prigozhin’s reported comments are reminiscent of the split in the US ruling class during the Vietnam War, when fear of popular unrest grew in tandem with battlefield losses. 

Except in this case nothing comparable to the mass US antiwar movement yet exists in Russia, much less anything approaching a revolutionary situation as in 1917, invoked by the right-wing populist Prigozhin to push the lackadaisical Russian elite surrounding Putin into a full-scale mobilization and intensification of the Ukraine war.

His point that the invasion, purportedly designed to demilitarize Ukraine, has had exactly the opposite effect is his most damning criticism of Putin and his circle.

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Prigozhin says war in Ukraine has backfired, warns of Russian revolution

By Mary Ilyushina

Washington Post

May 24 2023

RIGA, Latvia — Fresh off his claim of victory in capturing the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, Russian mercenary boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin warned that Moscow’s brutal war could plunge Russia into turmoil similar to the 1917 revolution unless its detached, wealthy elites become more directly committed to the conflict.

In a lengthy interview with Konstantin Dolgov, a political operative and pro-war blogger, Prigozhin, the founder and leader of the Wagner mercenary group, also asserted that the war has backfired spectacularly by failing to “demilitarize” Ukraine, one of President Vladimir Putin’s stated aims of the invasion. He also called for totalitarian policies.

“We are in a situation where we can simply lose Russia,” Prigozhin said, using an expletive to hammer his point. “We must introduce martial law. We unfortunately … must announce new waves of mobilization; we must put everyone who is capable to work on increasing the production of ammunition,” he said. “Russia needs to live like North Korea for a few years, so to say, close the borders … and work hard.”

Citing public anger at the lavish lifestyles of Russia’s rich and powerful, Prigozhin warned that their homes could be stormed by people with “pitchforks.” He singled out Ksenia Shoigu, the daughter of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who was spotted vacationing in Dubai with her fiancé, Alexei Stolyarov, a fitness blogger.

“The children of the elite shut their traps at best, and some allow themselves a public, fat, carefree life,” Prigozhin said in the interview, which was released Wednesday on video. “This division might end as in 1917, with a revolution — when first the soldiers rise up, and then their loved ones follow.”

[...]

Instead of demilitarization, he said, the invasion turned “Ukraine’s army into one of the most powerful in the world” and Ukrainians into “a nation known to the entire world.”

“If they, figuratively speaking, had 500 tanks at the beginning of the special operation, now they have 5,000,” he said. “If they had 20,000 fighters who knew how to fight, now they have 400,000. How did we ‘demilitarize’ it? Now it turns out that we militarized it — hell knows how.”

Prigozhin this week again said that his fighters would leave Bakhmut, potentially in a bid to leave Shoigu responsible for holding the city, which Kyiv insists it will retake.

In the interview, he had special venom for the children of the elite and for the many wealthy Russians who have tried to avoid letting their lives be disrupted by the war. Prigozhin, however, did not comment on the fact that this effort to shield Russians has been a central strategy of Putin’s since the invasion started.

Prigozhin said that the grief of “tens of thousands of relatives” of killed soldiers might reach a boiling point, and the Russian government will have to contend with broader anger and discontent, exacerbated by economic disparity.

[...]

In his interview, Prigozhin said there was an “optimistic scenario” for Russia’s war: Western support for Ukraine wears out, and China brokers a peace deal, allowing Russia to keep occupied Ukrainian lands.

“I don’t have much faith in the optimistic scenario,” he said, adding that instead Ukraine could partially succeed in a highly anticipated counteroffensive, pushing Russian troops closer to the borders that existed before hostilities began in 2014. It could also attack Crimea and continue pressing on in the east, armed with more Western weapons, he said.

“Most likely this scenario will not be good for us,” Prigozhin said. “So we need to prepare for a difficult war.”