Yevgeniy Prigozhin slams Vladimir Putin - hard

In a publicly released interview with state official and prowar blogger Konstantin Dolgov, the Wagner Group's Yevgeniy Prigozhin pushed dangerously farther than ever before.

Essentially he said that Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine was a bust, that the Russian leader knows not what he's doing; explicitly he said that Ukraine is now strong, and he implied that Putin himself is imperiling the very existence of Russia itself. 

"We are in a situation where we can simply lose Russia. 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," said Prigozhin. "Russia needs to live like North Korea for a few years, so to say, close the borders … and work hard.

"The children of the elite shut their traps at best, and some allow themselves a public, fat, carefree life," which could cause average Russians to attack them with "pitchforks." Added Prigozhin: "This division might end as in 1917, with a revolution — when first the soldiers rise up, and then their loved ones follow."

He also said Putin's invasion has only turned "Ukraine’s army into one of the most powerful in the world," and turned Ukrainians into "a nation known to the entire world." A nation— not a brotherly satellite — and a powerful one at that. "If they, figuratively speaking, had 500 tanks at the beginning of the special operation, now they have 5,000. 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."

Last he addressed Ukraine's imminent counteroffensive. "I don’t have much faith in the optimistic scenario [for Russia]." Ukraine, he said, could be successful to the point of forcing Russian troops nearer to their own borders than were on the map before the initial invasion of 2014. Armed with Western weapons, Ukraine might attack Crimea and then push farther to the east, he said. "Most likely this scenario will not be good for us. So we need to prepare for a difficult war."

And Prigozhin might want to prepare for a "difficult" year, if he can survive it. Mr. Putin will not take kindly to such honest realities. 

The Wagner Group's leader may be a butcher, a criminal, a genocidal psychopath, but a coward he is not. From love of his own hide, never did one of Hitler's Prussian butchers tell him off as Prigozhin as done to Putin; not once did a Wehrmacht general provide the little corporal with a Prigozhinlike assessment of the military mess he had made of the war. 

Yevgeniy routinely, fearlessly pops off with all manner of leadership denunciations, although this time he may have gone just a bit too far. Unless, that is, Putin has become as weak as many Russian elites now say he is.