On the three-year anniversary it is pretty interesting that a piece about Prigozhin’s March is published by Fontanka. It’s an interview with Prigozhin’s former lawyer-troubleshooter who is pedalling his book. His clear message: “The leadership of the country fled like cowards when faced with the first hint of armed insurrection in June 2023. While Putin could do nothing, Lukashenka took a major role in staving off a civil war erupting in Moscow.”

Tl/dr:

• the march is repeatedly called a “March of Justice” rather than a mutiny;
• Wagner’s actions are framed as a reaction to MoD misconduct;
• the downing of aircraft/killing of Russian soldiers is rationalized as self-defence;
• senior officials are described as fleeing Moscow;
• Prigozhin is presented as a patriot not a traitor;
• the possibility that Wagner could have reached the Kremlin/MoD is treated as plausible;
• corruption and elite decadence are presented as explanations for popular sympathy toward Wagner.

The key quotes that made me sit up straight:

“Высокопоставленные чиновники сообщили нам, что высшее руководство покинуло Москву…” (“High-ranking officials informed us that the top leadership had left Moscow…”)

and then:

“…в случае прямого столкновения ее будет не удержать, и ‘вагнера’ … зайдут в Кремль.” (“…in the event of a direct clash Moscow could not be held and Wagner would enter the Kremlin.”)

Fontanka remains of interest because before 2022 you could plausibly argue that it remained ‘critical’ but ‘system-tolerated’. If you were to categorize its evolution it would be a nice case study of what ‘investigative journalism within tightening regime constraints’ looks like. It’s in the top ten of ‘trad’ media webpages in the country – not just in St Pete. It’s got an extremely interesting history that mashes up the lines between the police, investigative journalism, and organized crime, but that’s for another time. Having said that, Fontanka has historically been seen as a reasonably safe place to push boundaries, with the understanding that they will back-pedal if needed and even pull stories after the fact. The interview thus maintains legal distancing from the interviewee.

In this article just the fact that they use ‘March of Justice’ in the title, even if in quote marks, is pretty glaring. It’s funny that Fontanka allows this. It even allows the speaker to legalistically say it’s not technically a coup according to the Criminal Code. Ok, so this is both an exculpatory piece from a lawyer who worked for Prigozhin, a promo for his book, and simultaneously conforms to the basic principles of ‘safe’ Russian journalism (‘we can’t really know the truth, but everyone’s intentions are patriotic until we hear otherwise after the fact’).

What’s interesting about this is that it can be interpreted as pushing boundaries of what can be said. There’s open discussion of the necessity of Russian troops being killed for resisting the ‘march of justice’ without further comment or condemnation. There’s general tone of displaced sympathy for Prigozhin now he’s safely dead, but even this is pretty unusual, I’d say, to see in print. It’s kind of projected onto the interlocutor to further diffuse its potential impact, but, nonetheless. Whether this reflects changing political winds or merely the safe rehabilitation of a dead actor remains unclear.

Most revealingly – and what steps over various ‘lines’, is the bit where the ‘bosses’ are described as fleeing Moscow because they believed that Wagner would be able to take the Kremlin. And that this would have been justified in the face of ‘the need for change given the facts of corruption and fat-cat officials which had pissed everyone off’. This bit isn’t even caveated by mention that it was the Ministry of Defence that was the main ‘baddies’ and not the Commander in Chief. Pretty remarkable.

As we get further on, the ‘voice’ of Prigozhin from beyond the grave is presented as a true patriot who was provoked into rational action against the defence establishment because of their incompetence and corruption. Also revealing: without caveats, Prigozhin’s military achievements are presented as being usurped violently by the army which was intent on screwing him and his men royally. His hand was forced – the army would have tried to physically liquidate him and his men. He didn’t want to overthrow ‘power’ but he could have. There’s a lot of puff, mythos, ‘mut’ i pizdezh’ as they say, and more self-exculpation, hemming and hedging – it’s not worth actually reading the thing. But the vibe. The ‘vibe is off’, as the kids say. Or maybe it’s ‘on’?

Meta: Obviously my whole schtick is that I don’t go in for ‘Kremlinological’ takes. But this was juicy and tells us something interesting about what’s going on in the Russian deep-state-media cesspit. The boundaries of what is ‘askable’ are not nearly as narrow as many would believe. It also comes hard on the heels of a number of Carnegie and other pieces by the looking-glass opposition that are equally self-exculpatory – only from the other end of the spectrum ‘Ru technical liberals were powerless, don’t blame them’.

Accordingly, we should treat takes by former functionaries and communicators from ‘inside’, but who are now safely in Berlin London or Washington, with the same critical analysis as we treat pieces like this. Everything published on Russia looks like what they used to call ‘article-to-order’ if you look at them hard enough. In short, what I’m labouring to say here is that sometimes – often even – things published within Russia, in conditions of high risk and self-censorship, can be much more use to our understanding than, say, Carnegie. Tolstoy’s unhappy families principle applies surprisingly well to Russia-watching. Fontanka, Carnegie, Meduza, and the rest all have credibility problems—but not the same credibility problems.

[Thanks to ‘Charlie Nail’ for his insights on the murky world of Russian mazhory and journalism]