In Putin's environment, there is group of people who have realized that war is lost – Piontkovsky 

He said this on the air of the Espreso TV channel.

"The first major success of the Ukrainian offensive will be a trigger for irreversible political changes inside Russia. A year ago, Putin let Prigozhin off the chain to discredit Shoigu and Gerasimov, and now Prigozhin is already discrediting the very idea of war. I quote his latest statements: we did not invent this 'special operation', we did not start this mindless war. The soldiers who have been thrown into this tragedy, when they open their eyes, they will tear up everyone who did this. Of course, Prigozhin is manipulating, he is a frontman. If he were a loner, he would have been eliminated long ago," Piontkovsky said.

According to the political scientist, a rather serious group of people has already formed in Putin's environment, which has realized that the war is lost.

"This group needs to solve much more important tasks: how to preserve their power and property in the losing country, in post-Putin and post-war Russia. And Prigozhin, with his addresses, plays a crucial role for this group. Prigozhin prepares the patriotic society to accept defeat. Instead of victory, he offers them another satisfaction after the war: a massacre of traitors, a massacre of the residents of Rublevka. He applauded the drone attacks on Rublevka. And there are very serious forces behind Prigozhin, primarily the KGB, which decided that the war was lost. And now we need to deal with the fact that it is necessary to preserve power and property after defeat," Piontkovsky emphasized.

• As a reminder, relations between Yevgeny Prigozhin and the top military leadership of the Russian Federation have long been tense. On February 21, it became known that he had repeatedly complained about the lack of adequate ammunition supplies to his militants, publicly criticizing officials of the Russian Defense Ministry, including its head Sergei Shoigu. Recently, the founder of the Wagner PMC stated that he and other high-ranking Wagner soldiers were completely disconnected from the Russian government communication line and had all passes to Russian ministries blocked.

• On May 25, the founder of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced the beginning of the withdrawal of units from Bakhmut. By June 1, the positions were to be handed over to the Russian Defense Ministry.

• National security expert Ivan Varchenko believes that the Wagner members themselves are interested in eliminating Prigozhin.