There’s a good deal of poetic justice weaving through the surreal coup attempt over the weekend that enveloped Russia in chaos and posed a grave threat to Vladimir Putin’s 23-year grip on power.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the paramilitary Wagner Group that marched within 124 miles of Moscow before stopping, is Putin’s creation. Once a convicted thief who served prison time, Prigozhin won Putin’s friendship early on. With the Russian leader’s patronage, Prigozhin earned billions as the Kremlin’s caterer, founder of the Internet Research Agency trolling group that meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and head of the Wagner mercenaries that did Putin’s dirty work in military conflicts in Syria, several African nations, and, of course, Ukraine.
What Putin never counted on was his faithful partner-in-bloodshed going from minion to mutineer.
