Prigozhin wants blood. When will feudal slaughter finally begin in Russia?

First of all, there is a mild reaction to Prigozhin's video, which was so generously spread by the retinue of Kremlin war correspondents. In it, Putin's favorite mercenary says that Shoigu and Gerasimov have turned bronze, and their children are making videos on YouTube. “Bastards, ugly creatures, masters of life.” And the Wagner soldiers, he says, have nothing to fire: “There is a 70% shortage of shells,” Prigozhin loudly declares. This is not really true. After all, according to numerous soldiers of the 72nd Brigade or the 3rd Detached Assault Brigade, which have been the striking force against the Wagner mercenaries for several months now, everything is fine with the equipment and weapons of these groups. In fact, it is the best among all other units. As for the lack of ammunition, this is an exaggeration, because there are many artillery depots in the Russian Federation. And unfortunately, they did not burn down like our arsenals in Ichnia, Svatove or Balaklia.

The fact is that the sacred Russian holiday of Victory Day is about to be marked on the calendar. By this date, Russian officials promised to take Bakhmut, the entire Donbas, and begin developing the new territorial gains that Russia seized in the first two weeks of the war. In mid-April, the same Prigozhin stated that “it is necessary to put a full stop to the special military operation.” And to do everything in order to “firmly gain a foothold in the territories that are already there.”

Because Prigozhin is a longtime and personal friend of Putin's, his right-hand man on sensitive issues, this is the official Kremlin position. And it concerns how to explain the military defeat in Ukraine in the long run. And to present it as something absolutely logical. Moreover, before the Ukrainian counteroffensive, it was necessary to provide food for the plebs, what are the goals of the current war and why mobilization is needed.

The second act of this performance for the domestic audience was the drones over the Kremlin. First of all, in order to legally cancel the victory parade and not to explain why the Luhansk and Donetsk regions have not been completely taken over in more than a year. Next, it is also a blow to Shoigu and Gerasimov and their ability to protect the decision-making centers in Russia.

Let us recall how the Russian military demonstratively deployed air defense systems in the capital. In Moscow, parks were blocked off for the S-400, and the air defense systems were placed directly on the roofs of administrative buildings. In this way, Russians were convinced that this was no longer a war for the denazification of Ukraine, that the struggle was for the survival of the Russian Federation as a state.

The appearance of a drone over the Kremlin raised a lot of angry questions from the residents of Moscow: “Where is our air defense?” And so now we need to name the clear names of those responsible. And, in fact, Prigozhin named the names of those who will be responsible for all the troubles and misfortunes. Obviously, Shoigu and Gerasimov will be the first to go under the knife after Russia's defeat.

American military intelligence gave a clear explanation why this drone was not Ukrainian. And that its operator was sitting very close to the Kremlin. And so, on the eve of the sacred holiday of every Russian - May 9 - the Kremlin finally founds the point of a 'war for the future of Russia' or a new 'domestic war.' And somewhere in between these statements will be a search for its enemies, who are directly responsible for the fact that the complete occupation of Ukraine and the final resolution of the Ukrainian issue did not work out.

This shift in emphasis to the domestic agenda gives Putin even more room to tighten the screws inside Russia and start the Stalinist-style flywheel of repression, when the most talented Red commanders were put under the knife like a pig on Christmas.

If you are an ordinary Russian and planned to sit through this uncomfortable war with a cocktail in a bar on Patriarchal Ponds, congratulations. It is with such acts and statements like this that “the Wagner PMC's lack ammunition” that the total cutback in social spending and the channeling of money to the war begins.

Although Russia was much better prepared to attack Ukraine than we were to defend ourselves on February 24, even their resources are not infinite under more or less effective sanctions. And the bad Russians and the Russians from the decorative opposition understand this. No wonder even those fleeing to the West, a la Yekaterina Shulman, are worried about the fact that “Ukraine will be rebuilt later, and what about us?”

Russia has begun an internal struggle for resources and power, which we have wanted for so long. But we should not relax. Because the Russia of the future is not with the glamorized Oscar-winning Navalny. Its true face has filmed content against the backdrop of a mountain of corpses and is demanding the blood of Shoigu and Gerasimov.

Russia has fought so hard for high culture, for Dostoevsky in every Ukrainian home, that it has unexpectedly returned to the basics. To the red repressions of its own people. To the Gulag. To prisoners as the main model of success in life.

I greet those who sat in Russia and kept silent. A special greeting to those who have lost their heads but keep their Ukrainian passports on the mezzanine. You have been holding on to Russian rubles for so long that you have unexpectedly become dung in the Russia of the future. And its brand, Prigozhin and the Wagner mercenaries, who have become organic fertilizer in the ditches of Donbas.

I laugh angrily at the traitors who fell for the rhetoric of “protecting the people of Donbas” and lost everything. Honor, dignity and the right to call themselves human. All these sweet syrups about protecting the people of Donetsk and Luhansk disappeared when Russia smelled something fried. And when Putin has to save his own skin first and foremost. Otherwise, he knows from the example of his idol Stalin what it's like to die in a puddle of his own urine. When you give in and are subject to disposal.

Does Russia's internal strife change anything for us? No, it doesn't. And I am finally glad that our president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told the hard truth in an interview with Western media. This is a decades-long war. With different phases, with painful losses, with the rebirth of everyone at the level of atoms. But the science is the same for everyone - finally kill the 'little Russian' in you. Build reliable borders with Russia and finally live.

About the author: Maryna Daniluk-Yarmolaeva, Ukrainian journalist.