Berliner Boersenzeitung - Prigozhin, Simonyan, Medvedev: the rise of the Russian hawk

EUR -
AED 3.938433
AFN 73.284765
ALL 98.192985
AMD 417.27019
ANG 1.943361
AOA 978.461083
ARS 1071.53845
AUD 1.628027
AWG 1.930092
AZN 1.823751
BAM 1.95566
BBD 2.177144
BDT 128.850795
BGN 1.955934
BHD 0.406471
BIF 3183.572567
BMD 1.072273
BND 1.425198
BOB 7.467467
BRL 6.152601
BSD 1.078323
BTN 90.973501
BWP 14.300978
BYN 3.528748
BYR 21016.558588
BZD 2.173445
CAD 1.491398
CDF 3073.135393
CHF 0.939168
CLF 0.03726
CLP 1028.126551
CNY 7.698067
CNH 7.633831
COP 4640.968452
CRC 551.560597
CUC 1.072273
CUP 28.415245
CVE 110.257123
CZK 25.272787
DJF 192.016282
DKK 7.459912
DOP 64.935361
DZD 142.959787
EGP 52.836225
ERN 16.084101
ETB 133.504163
FJD 2.399964
FKP 0.82047
GBP 0.830094
GEL 2.916877
GGP 0.82047
GHS 17.683737
GIP 0.82047
GMD 76.663098
GNF 9295.335946
GTQ 8.335405
GYD 225.593884
HKD 8.336936
HNL 27.206056
HRK 7.386924
HTG 141.889863
HUF 407.472495
IDR 16786.279194
ILS 4.021369
IMP 0.82047
INR 90.481807
IQD 1412.499092
IRR 45134.673563
ISK 148.767334
JEP 0.82047
JMD 171.077778
JOD 0.760348
JPY 163.687928
KES 139.090063
KGS 92.429668
KHR 4378.687189
KMF 493.647873
KPW 965.045816
KRW 1499.251122
KWD 0.328834
KYD 0.898536
KZT 530.812079
LAK 23665.309362
LBP 96559.801817
LKR 315.467463
LRD 204.335402
LSL 18.869752
LTL 3.166145
LVL 0.648608
LYD 5.232626
MAD 10.648439
MDL 19.338618
MGA 4988.643614
MKD 61.610599
MMK 3482.702168
MNT 3643.585034
MOP 8.633883
MRU 42.957931
MUR 49.751672
MVR 16.566431
MWK 1869.766425
MXN 21.628297
MYR 4.699238
MZN 68.52822
NAD 18.869752
NGN 1788.637596
NIO 39.677165
NOK 11.808196
NPR 145.557601
NZD 1.798398
OMR 0.412631
PAB 1.078323
PEN 4.044611
PGK 4.328691
PHP 62.679724
PKR 299.426009
PLN 4.328253
PYG 8431.397665
QAR 3.931919
RON 4.963436
RSD 117.041815
RUB 104.992499
RWF 1478.094406
SAR 4.027447
SBD 8.943568
SCR 14.390472
SDG 644.968857
SEK 11.601022
SGD 1.421405
SHP 0.82047
SLE 24.501725
SLL 22485.033576
SOS 616.255975
SRD 37.497132
STD 22193.894413
SVC 9.435326
SYP 2694.119367
SZL 18.864652
THB 36.57257
TJS 11.462081
TMT 3.76368
TND 3.347861
TOP 2.511374
TRY 36.806455
TTD 7.327477
TWD 34.580984
TZS 2878.994326
UAH 44.51492
UGX 3946.718048
USD 1.072273
UYU 45.046782
UZS 13788.014991
VEF 3884366.713112
VES 47.874317
VND 27101.710118
VUV 127.302484
WST 3.003635
XAF 655.910142
XAG 0.031788
XAU 0.000394
XCD 2.897872
XDR 0.808442
XOF 655.910142
XPF 119.331742
YER 267.880676
ZAR 18.857268
ZMK 9651.746851
ZMW 29.355903
ZWL 345.271596
  • RBGPF

    61.4000

    61.4

    +100%

  • SCS

    0.0600

    13.14

    +0.46%

  • RIO

    -3.0400

    64.43

    -4.72%

  • RELX

    0.3200

    47.98

    +0.67%

  • CMSC

    0.1600

    24.84

    +0.64%

  • AZN

    -0.2000

    64.49

    -0.31%

  • NGG

    -0.3600

    63.94

    -0.56%

  • BCC

    1.4700

    142.32

    +1.03%

  • RYCEF

    0.0100

    7.15

    +0.14%

  • BTI

    -0.0100

    35.39

    -0.03%

  • GSK

    -0.3700

    36.29

    -1.02%

  • JRI

    0.1600

    13.53

    +1.18%

  • VOD

    -0.0100

    9.31

    -0.11%

  • BCE

    0.3000

    28.37

    +1.06%

  • CMSD

    0.2350

    25.125

    +0.94%

  • BP

    -0.8800

    28.93

    -3.04%

Prigozhin, Simonyan, Medvedev: the rise of the Russian hawk
Prigozhin, Simonyan, Medvedev: the rise of the Russian hawk / Photo: EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA - POOL/AFP/File

Prigozhin, Simonyan, Medvedev: the rise of the Russian hawk

The first one challenged Ukraine's president to a fighter jet duel. The second has threatened Europe with nuclear apocalypse. The third has said cannibals roam Ukraine.

Text size:

Russia's warmongers used to be relegated to the margins of society but now they are basking in the limelight after the Kremlin ordered its army to Ukraine.

These are Moscow's fiercest hawks, whose rise points to a new military fervour in Russia:

- Prigozhin: the warlord -

For years, Yevgeny Prigozhin did the Kremlin's bidding from the shadows, dispatching mercenaries from his private fighting force to conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, always denying involvement.

That changed with the Ukraine conflict. The 61-year-old both admitted he started the Wagner group and then began recruitment drives from Russia's prison network.

His offer? Fight in exchange for amnesty. The catch? Deserters and fighters who let themselves be captured would be summarily killed.

When video circulated showing an alleged Wagner deserter being executed with a sledgehammer, Prigozhin praised the killing, calling the dead man a "dog".

"Do not drink too much, don't take drugs, don't rape anyone," he told a group of prisoners who had served a six-month term and were being released into society.

Unlike Russia's generals, who have been criticised for shirking the battles, the stocky and bald Prigozhin regularly poses for pictures alongside mercenaries allegedly on the front lines.

Most recently, Prigozhin posted from the cockpit of a SU-24 fighter jet and challenged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky -- who has been pleading for jets -- to an aerial duel.

"If you want, let's meet in the skies. If you win, you will take (Bakhmut)," he said, referring to the longest battle of Russia's campaign.

The former hotdog seller from Saint Petersburg, who was himself jailed for nearly a decade during the Soviet era, has also tangled with Russia's top brass.

He clashed last month with the defence ministry over whose force had captured the town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine.

Prigozhin criticised the military's attempts to "steal the victory" from Wagner, pointing to his rising clout and the potential for dangerous rifts between him and officials in Moscow.

- Medvedev: the new convert -

For former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev, the conflict has offered an opportunity to reinvent himself, shedding all traces of his liberal past to become one of Russia's most bellicose hawks.

The 57-year-old, now serving as deputy chairman of Russia's security council, was once famously photographed eating burgers with then-US President Barack Obama.

The picture now is very different.

"The defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war can provoke the outbreak of a nuclear war," he warned ahead of a meeting of Ukraine's allies in Germany in January.

Medvedev has called US President Joe Biden "a strange grandfather with dementia" and referred to EU leaders as "lunatics".

And the Ukrainian government? "A bunch of crazy Nazi drug addicts," he said last November.

But Medvedev, once a regular on state television, is now mostly relegated to social media and his Telegram channel, which has more than one million subscribers.

"People often ask me why my messages are so harsh. The answer is this: I hate them," he said four months after the Kremlin launched its intervention in Ukraine.

"They are bastards and degenerates. They want us dead. They want Russia dead. And as long as I am alive, I will do everything I can to make them disappear."

- Simonyan: the information warrior -

Margarita Simonyan, the matriarch of Kremlin propaganda and the head of state-run television network RT, was already a vocal supporter of President Vladimir Putin before Russia's intervention in Ukraine.

Her rhetoric has since ratcheted up. The 42-year-old is a frequent guest on talk shows, where she launches tirades bristling with patriotic fervour and threats of nuclear apocalypse.

"Either we will win, or things will end badly for the whole of humanity," she said last May.

But the beginning of the offensive posed an immediate problem for Simonyan's network -- also known as Russia Today -- which was banned in most Western countries.

"Whenever they shut us down, we just used other (ways) to keep publishing... and passing on our message," Simonyan said in response.

Even though she routinely denounces this Western "censorship," Simonyan has also demanded that Russia ban foreign social media platforms -- a call Moscow has made good on.

"For 10 years I've been saying it: we still need to close everything, to ban it all, and to replace it with our own," she said.

In recognition of her work since the beginning of the conflict, Putin awarded her the Order of Honour in December.

"Thank you for slaying the cannibals," she told the Russian leader in accepting the award.

(U.Gruber--BBZ)