‘He wants his own deputies’

Meduza’s sources say Evgeny Prigozhin hopes to take control of the party A Just Russia in a quid-pro-quo with its leader

Story by Andrey Pertsev. Translation by Sam Breazeale.

In November 2022, two Kremlin insiders told Meduza they believed Kremlin-backed tycoon Evgeny Prigozhin had plans to launch a conservative movement that could eventually transform into a full-fledged political party. Prigozhin’s political aspirations are nothing new; back in 2020, after years of wielding influence as an entrepreneur, election meddler, and mercenary boss, he reportedly considered running for office himself. Now, according to Meduza’s sources, the Wagner Group founder has a new strategy: rather than create a new party from scratch, he hopes to seize control of a major branch of an existing party. But some sources are skeptical that the Kremlin will stand idly by and let someone so unpredictable assume so much power.

In early April, four members of the party A Just Russia’s faction in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly announced that they were leaving the party and planned to launch a new political project. The faction’s only other member, a deputy who didn’t officially belong to the party, said he plans to join them.

The same day, the body’s vice speaker, deputy Marina Shishkina, resigned from her leadership position. Shishkina, who had led A Just Russia’s St. Petersburg branch since 2017, said the faction’s dissolution is an expression of its members’ opposition to recent changes in the party’s strategy:

I used to belong to a different party — a socialist, social-democratic one, whose title shined with the idea of social justice. It solved large problems for small people.

I belonged to a party of intellectual and professional politicians who were born in an open, tolerant, and enlightened St. Petersburg. Unfortunately, more recently, the party’s agenda has shifted in a direction that doesn’t correspond to my understanding of the idea of justice.

Two months earlier, Shishkina said openly that she disapproved of A Just Russia party leader Sergey Mironov’s increasingly close relationship with Wagner Group founder Evgeny Prigozhin. Mironov has indeed frequently spoken in approving terms of Prigozhin’s mercenaries in Ukraine. On March 20, for example, he called the company a “heroic military formation,” and just several days afterward, he was photographed holding a “Wagner sledgehammer” that he had received as a gift from Prigozhin.

In an interview with Fontanka on March 1, 2023, Mironov referred Prigozhin as “Zhenya,” a friendly nickname for Evgeny, and emphasized how long the two men have known each other: “Zhenya and I talk on the phone often, and we write back and forth. He’s very professional,” said the party leader. Mironov also said that Prigozhin has no “political ambitions”: “There are no agreements, no joint political projects [between us] — nothing at all,” he maintained.

But two sources close to the Kremlin and one close to the St. Petersburg authorities told Meduza otherwise. Prigozhin, they said, is “interested” in A Just Russia’s St. Petersburg branch, which is widely considered one of the party’s most valuable assets. According to the sources, the mercenary boss may try to take control of the chapter and use it as an additional tool in his standoff with St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov.

Prigozhin’s relationship with Beglov soured long ago due to the city administration’s unwillingness to award Prigozhin’s businesses contracts for large, state-funded projects. The catering tycoon has repeatedly called on law enforcement to open a criminal case against Beglov, but has so far been unsuccessful.

At the same time, according to Meduza’s source close to the St. Petersburg city government, Prigozhin hasn’t shied away from “attempts to influence the situation in the city” — and hopes, among other things, that his position in his conflict with Beglov will be “read aloud from the podium of the Legislative Assembly.” “He wants to have his own deputies,” the source said.

The sources also said Prigozhin may be interested in A Just Russia at the federal level. Meduza has previously reported on the Wagner founder’s desire to found a conservative movement that he can eventually transform into a party.

“He’s interested in politics. He has a pool of [political] strategists. Before the [2021] State Duma elections, he hesitated about whether to invest in the Rodina party as a political project on the federal level. In the end, he showed little appetite for it; evidently, he changed his mind,” said one source close to the Putin administration.

Meduza’s sources close to the Kremlin noted that Mironov’s relationship with Prigozhin may be useful to the party leader as well. His own interest in the alliance, they said, stems from the fact that his decades-old friendship with Vladimir Putin is the only factor keeping his limited political influence alive. In the 1990s, when Putin served as St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak’s deputy, he was responsible for Sobchak’s coordination with city lawmakers — and Mironov was the Legislative Assembly’s vice speaker.

“But it’s been a long time since they’ve had anything like a warm relationship. Mironov needs to be needed by someone. He needs protection,” a source close to the Putin administration told Meduza.

Meanwhile, according to that source, Ruslan Tatarinov, a former soldier and the head of A Just Russia’s party apparatus, has been pushing for an alliance between Mironov and Prigozhin as well. In late 2022, Tatarinov went to fight in Ukraine, and he hasn’t returned since. “Tatarinov knows Prigozhin; they have a fine relationship,” said the source. “Essentially, before he went to the front, he worked in the party’s operations division.”

At the same time, two sources close to the Kremlin told Meduza that they doubt the Putin administration will allow Prigozhin to take control of a party that has seats in parliament. “Even as a tool against Beglov, it’s unlikely they’ll give up the party: Beglov has a good relationship with [the Kremlin’s domestic policy czar] Sergey Kiriyenko,” said a source close to the Kremlin’s political bloc.

Another source close to the Putin administration said that in 2019, the Kremlin prevented an attempt by ultraconservative oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev to take control of A Just Russia. “He wanted his own party, rather than sponsoring a party for the Kremlin. Those are two different things,” said the source. “Prigozhin also wants his own party.”

Meduza’s sources described the relationship between the Kremlin’s political bloc and Prigozhin as “strained.” The independent outlet iStories attributed the conflict between Prigozhin and Kiriyenko to the former’s growing political ambitions. Meduza’s sources corroborated this account: “Kiriyenko considers Prigozhin uncontrollable, and politics should be insulated from those kinds of people.”

At the same time, even the sources close to the Putin administration who believe the Kremlin will be unwilling to give Prigozhin his own party acknowledge that Russian politics is difficult to “insulate from Prigozhin.” “Everything will depend on the successes or failures on the battlefield,” said one.

Meanwhile, Sergey Mironov asked his ex-party colleagues in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly to give up their seats (they refused) and held a highly publicized meeting with Evgeny Prigozhin. According to a press release that appeared on A Just Russia’s website on April 10, Prigozhin and Mironov discussed “issues related to the conduct of the special military operation, as well as the socio-political situation in the country and in their native St. Petersburg”

In response to Meduza’s request for comment about his meeting with Mironov and his interest in A Just Russia, Evgeny Prigozhin said the following: “I visited Mr. Mironov in order to wipe my feet on the mat at the entrance to his office that depicts the U.S. president. We discussed the assistance he and A Just Russia might be able to provide to me and my private military company in the special military operation, and after that, we talked about events in the world, about chicks, and about other nonsense.”

As of this article’s publication, the party A Just Russia had not responded to Meduza’s questions.

Story by Andrey Pertsev

Translation by Sam Breazeale