> Third observation

Why would people not support Wagner over the regular army, and specifically over Shoigu and Gerasimov that he alleges to target? I can explain. None of the reasoning below is meant to excuse or praise Wagner or the rest of Russian actors in the region, but nevertheless, it's valuable to understand people's perspective.

This stuff about Utkin's Nazism, with Prigozhin himself son of a Jewish man, is completely peripheral and not in any way more salient than fringe National Socialist elements and Azov symbolic on the Ukrainian side that Russians make much hay of (in spite of Zelensky, too, being Jewish). The accusation just doesn't bite when there's a Slav on Slav war going on, it's only good for propaganda and twitter point-scoring, neither side there is seriously making decisions with relation to WWII political compass.

War crimes? This whole – unrecognized – war is a crime if we're serious about it, and regular Russian military is neck deep in war crimes, and it wasn't (far as anyone knows) Wagner that had terrorized Bucha, obliterated Mariupol or blew up the Kahovka dam, to name just three high-profile atrocities.
Executions? The most recent case was them executing a defector (and a repeat criminal offender, from Ukraine, who had been serving a term for aggravated murder prior to his recruitment and defection). I don't think it's surprising when people in a rather harsh society shrug about such things (not to whatabout, but how many Americans would approve or at least not object to Snowden's execution?).

On the other hand, there are very salient reasons Russians support Wagner.

1. They just have a compelling, powerful image. It is known that they've succeeded in a few areas where regular forces have failed; Prigozhin is somewhat good at moving speeches; and they've been effective at exaggerating the difference and appropriating credit. Reminder that Prigozhin is a man of many talents and careers, one among those being management of the so-called Internet Research Agency [1]; catering business, paramilitary operations and illustration of children's books [2] aside, he's been in charge of propaganda for a long time now.

2. Adding to that, they just have an outsized presence in people's minds, there are catchy edgy music videos [3] and decently made movies [4] of their production (with military history buffs praising that movie), many affiliated Telegram channels, they're just very online, including Prigozhin personally – unlike Russian Ministry of Defense that's infamously behind the times, secretive, prone to embarrassing transparent lies, "boomer-like". It's another Russian self-own, in a sense, because the MoD grasped at Wagnerite meme magic to rescue the perception of the campaign, and became overshadowed as a result.

3. The war is not genuinely popular, especially now that it's clearly close to being lost. Surveys to the effect that 70% of Russians support the war omit details that this support is often in the form "we'll be exterminated if we surrender" [5], it's not driven by some positive expectation of Imperial greatness but by fear, very much like 1945 Germany but exacerbated by connectivity [6]; there was an awful lot of chauvinistic smugness early on, but not now. Prigozhin articulates criticism of the status quo (Ukraine never planned to attack, the operation was a mistake, it needlessly made Ukraine into a real threat, eroded Russian prestige, brought NATO closer to the heart of Russia than it'd have been otherwise etc.) [7] that resonates with people vastly more than coping output of the official organs.

4. People really, truly hate and look down on Shoigu, even people in the regular army. Thus they did not open fire at Wagner forces, and there's such a volatile situation that soldiers at the frontline are often not given arms, due to fear of mutiny. It is known at this point, in large part thanks to Wagner propaganda, that Shoigu is a corrupt bureaucratic oaf not qualified for his job, who appopriates vast sums and even diverts military resources for his pampered daughter, who only became a Minister due to his ties within Russian elite (he's one of the most powerful members of the gang, jumping between top-level posts for three decades). He's a lightning rod for all aspects of dissatisfaction with the way the war has gone for Russia (which might be part of why Putin keeps him around). And he's specifically hated by the unorganized but powerful undercurrent of ethnic Russian nationalism, due to being perceived as a strongly identifying Tuvan Buddhist [8] feudal lord with a private army [9] who is completely beyond any reproach and glibly sends tens of thousands of Russians (plus of course other peoples) to the meatgrinder, in meat waves, for zero benefit. Shoigu is understood as "noviop" [10], a member of semi-artificial Soviet post-ethnic people, and the deeper one's ethno-nationalism, the less support he gets, with people really concerned about Slavic race and so on charging him with slaughter of Slavs on both sides. In contrast, Prigozhin plays up his Russophilic and Slavophilic attitude, has his son serving in Wagner, cries crocodile tears about the loss of lives, and very pointedly, repeatedly drives the connection, in very simple language: "the "Tuvan degenerate" Shoigu denies us materiel – thousands of our Russian boys are getting killed by the enemy". With Ukrainians apparently unbeatable and, frankly, acting in their right, the conclusion about ways to stop boys from being killed becomes obvious enough. Like Kadyrov, his fellow warlord, he conspicuously does not accuse the Supreme Leader of any wrongdoing, but the implication about actions he believes are legitimate for Putin to take are clear.

In short, it's best to understand the situation not so much as Wagner group being popular with Russians on its own merits, but as Russia having arrived at the metastable condition where any cohesive military unit that seems competent and starts a mutiny against the Ministry of Defense can expect nontrivial cooperation from the masses and other forces. This is, I believe, is exactly why Prigozhin is acting in such a bizarre manner: he is making clear to Putin that he could easily move around and destabilize the war effort, all to secure his own survival – in the way that popular field commanders of "Novorossiya" failed to do, and got eliminated on Kremlin orders as potential competitors for control.

Wagner is theoretically easy to destroy, but has enough momentum to topple the Army and potentially send the whole regime into tailspin, with how unpopular Shoigu is; yet Putin is too invested in his little mafia family to throw Shoigu to the dogs; and if he keeps covering for Shoigu, the whole "good Czar, bad boyars" scheme implodes. So the equilibrium is letting Prigozhin go, with his force. At least for now.

I wonder when Prigozhin has started working on this.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency

2. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/06/01/wagner-head-prigoz...

3. https://www.reddit.com/r/N_N_N/comments/xn4ky5/mc_wagner_rel...

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1EXVrACxnk

5. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/06/03/the-only-thing-worse...

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#Wartime_conseq...

7. https://t.me/Prigozhin_hat/3790

8. https://nationalpost.com/news/world/the-pounds-12m-polite-pa...

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_(company)

10. https://twitter.com/devarbol/status/1534020945660321792