Has Prigozhin pushed his luck too far with Putin?

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the businessman behind Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries, is hardly a man to keep a low profile. He is at his loudest and most vitriolic, though, either when he feels he has the upper hand over his (many) enemies or when he is on the ropes. He’s pretty outspoken these days, and no one thinks it’s because he’s winning.

For months, many of the small gains made by the Russians had been thanks to Wagner and its use of expendable soldiers recruited from the prison system. This had given Prigozhin a degree of latitude and license and, true to form, he had used that to prosecute his personal vendettas, against targets ranging from Alexander Beglov, the governor of St Petersburg to, most strikingly, defence minister Sergei Shoigu.

For all the overheated press speculation in some quarters that Prigozhin could be appointed as Shoigu’s successor or, even less plausible, stage a coup, the fact is that he is neither personally close to Vladimir Putin nor possesses of any real allies in the elite.