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Evgeny Prigozhin

Vladimir Putin
Julia Ioffe • June 18, 2024

Russiagate, Revisited

Eight years on from 2016, much of the Russian influence operation is now run out of the Kremlin, from Putin’s presidential administration. The good news: a lot of it is bafflingly bad and some of it is hilariously awful.
Julia Ioffe • September 6, 2023
The “Coup Belt” & A New Cold War
President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon was locked in his palace last week after his cousin, General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, announced that his soldiers had taken over the oil rich country.
As the U.S., China, Russia, and the Gulf states compete for power across the continent, Africa’s fragile semi-democracies have grown more and more cynical about the real value of democracy.
Julia Ioffe • August 29, 2023
Wagner After Prigozhin & The Next Putsch Attempt
Though Prigozhin had been a Hero of Russia, the country’s highest military honor, there was no honor guard, no military salute. State television largely skipped over his burial.
Life in Moscow after the falling plane: the anxieties of the elite, oligarch objectives, the future of Wagner, and the Russian rump state in Africa.
Prigozhin was an insider, somebody who existed entirely within the system of power that Putin built.
Julia Ioffe • August 23, 2023
Prigozhin’s Treason & The Price of Betrayal
Putin’s inner circle has always abided by an unwritten code—“ponyatie,” or understandings—about the rewards of loyalty and the fate of traitors. Prigozhin, lured into thinking that he might be special, was never an exception.
At this year’s Aspen Security Forum, Xie Feng essentially offered the same message as his predecessor (that the deterioration of U.S.-China relations was all America’s fault), but in different words.
Julia Ioffe • July 25, 2023
Where the Wild Things Are
The unofficial notes from official Washington’s summer journey to the Aspen Security conference: the disappearance of Qin Gang, the specter of Prigozhin, Putinology, Theo Baker, and what happens when you try to fuck with Andrea Mitchell.
The expectation in Putin’s court is that any purge would go after those close to Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Julia Ioffe • July 5, 2023
Putin’s Post-Prigozhin Clean Up
Despite Western media assertions that the half-coup heard round the world was a sign of instability, my sources around Moscow and the Kremlin tell me that Putin is once again in full control. But questions linger about a future purge and missed warning signs.
After a deafening 48-hour silence, Putin can’t seem to stop speaking.
Julia Ioffe • June 27, 2023
Putin vs. Prigozhin: The Post-Coup Report
In the wake of Prigozhin’s attempted coup, there’s been a lot of full-throated certainty in the Western media that Putin has been mortally wounded and that his regime is weaker than ever. Look as I might, I just don’t see it.
This morning, a Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.
Julia Ioffe • March 30, 2023
The Abduction of Evan Gershkovich
There is something uniquely stomach-turning about the arrest of Gershkovich, a journalist and U.S. citizen of Soviet Jewish extraction—a provocation without precedent since 1986. It’s not just that Russia is “banking hostages,” a common F.S.B. tactic. It’s that Putin is out for revenge.
Putin
Julia Ioffe • January 17, 2023
The Putin Poison Pill
As the war in Ukraine grinds on, pressure is building on all sides for the Biden administration to begin negotiations with the Russians, if only to prove what everyone inside the White House, State Department, and Pentagon already knows: the Russians have absolutely zero interest in negotiating.
Yevgeny Prigozhin
Julia Ioffe • December 13, 2022
“Putin’s Chef”: The Man Behind Russia’s Shadow Army
Evgeny Prigozhin, the terrifying and inscrutable muscle behind Russia’s most notorious mercenary group, has been the hidden hand behind some of the worst carnage in Ukraine—and an increasingly vocal threat to Putin, himself.