- Putin revealed on Tuesday Russia spent billions on Yevgeny Prigozhin and his mercenaries.
- He then said that he hopes “no one stole anything — or, let’s say, didn’t steal much.”
- Putin’s comment seems to suggest some theft is expected, highlighting the state of corruption in Russia.
After Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday Moscow spent billions on Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries, he quipped he hopes they “didn’t steal much” in a telling comment on the corruption running rampant in Russia.
In a meeting just days after Prigozhin called off his rebellion against the Russian Ministry of Defense and his march on Moscow, Putin said that Russia had fully financed Wagner operations between May 2022 and May 2023.
During much of that time, Wagner’s paramilitary forces were engaged in costly, high-intensity warfare in Ukraine, particularly in Bakhmut, while the group’s leader publicly feuded with the defense ministry, specifically the defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff and head of war operations in Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Putin revealed the Russian government spent 86 billion rubles, or roughly $1 billion, on support for Wagner, The New York Times reported, and the Concord catering company founded by Prigozhin, who has been nicknamed “Putin’s Chef,” received roughly 80 billion rubles for supply contracts with the Russian military.
He then hinted at potential consequences for those who may have run off with the money, at least above certain limits. He didn’t call out his long-time ally Prigozhin by name though.
“I hope that in the course of this work, no one stole anything — or, let’s say, didn’t steal much,” the Russian president said, according to a translation from The Times. “But we will certainly get to the bottom of this.”
Corruption is recognized as a serious problem in Russia, where opposition figures with anti-corruption agendas have been jailed for speaking out about illicit operations running all the way to the top. Such was the case for Alexei Navalny, an imprisoned critic of the Kremlin and Putin.
And, in an almost Soviet tradition, it extends beyond just politics into the military as well.
A former Russian air force lieutenant who later worked as an analyst for state media before leaving the country over the war in Ukraine told The New York Times last year, just a few months into the war in Ukraine, “it is impossible to imagine the scale of lies inside the military.”
The man described Russian commanders faking military exercises and then pocketing funds and contractors delivering sub-par systems to skim cash from dedicated budget allocations.
The veteran of the Russian military, Gleb Irisov, told The Times that he saw air defense systems that couldn’t even shoot down small drones, military vehicles that would break down after only a couple of years, and parts on fighter jets that would troublingly melt at supersonic speeds.
“The quality of military production is very low because of the race to steal money,” he said, describing a tradition of problematic rot in the Russian ranks and defense industry.
There is more to Putin’s comments than an acknowledgement of the corruption.
His statement Tuesday on financing for Wagner suggests that the private military company’s employees once celebrated as heroes after their Pyrrhic victory in Bakhmut may still be facing punishment beyond what the Russian leader initially let on.
The full consequences of Prigozhin and Wagner’s revolt remain to be seen.
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