The former chief of the multi-tentacled Wagner group, who is believed to have died in a plane crash, didn’t just send his army of mercenaries to the Ukrainian front lines. He was also at the vanguard of Putin’s effort to counter Western cultural dominance, and using movies to do it.
, a 107-minute feature film chronicling a brutal struggle for territory in an unnamed European city. The scenes of urban warfare are visceral and raw, and the only respite from the violence comes in the form of periodic tactical lectures aimed directly at the viewer. is the current war in Ukraine. Online detectives seem to disagree about which of the war’s recent battles the movie is based on.
As a member of one of the Wagner Group’s elite assault detachments, Nagin fought in multiple battles in Ukraine and was wounded several times. Last September, just weeks before was released, Nagin was back on the real front lines, this time in the Eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, where fighting continues. In late September, Nagin was killed. After his death, the Russian government posthumously awarded him its highest honor, the Hero of the Russian Federation.
A savvy political operator, Prigozhin cultivated the relationship and earned a spot in Putin’s inner circle, along with the nickname “Putin’s chef.” Behind the scenes, Prigozhin worked quietly to advance Putin’s agenda. In 2014, he created the Wagner Group, a private army of roughly 1,000 mercenaries. That year, he sent them into battle alongside the Russian army in support of Putin’s illegal annexation of Crimea.
Making movies didn’t prevent Prigozhin from making war — just the opposite. Prigozhin has made himself indispensable in Putin’s war in Ukraine. Wagner troops have borne the brunt of the fighting in some of the war’s fiercest battles, including the bloody siege of Bakhmut. Last September, a grainy video surfaced showing Prigozhin addressing convicted felons at a penal colony several hundred miles east of Moscow. He offered them early release from prison if they signed up to fight in Ukraine.
In a move reminiscent of the old Soviet youth guard, Prigozhin established the Little Wagnerite, an offshoot targeting Russian youth. With each of these moves, Prigozhin is emerging from the shadows, becoming in the process a loud and vehement driver of Russia’s expanding information war.
However, other forces were also emerging. Facing widespread discontent early in his second term, Putin needed loyal soldiers to help quell dissent. In the spring of 2012, Putin appointed Vladimir Medinsky, a regime loyalist and self-described advocate for traditional values, as minister of culture. In the eyes of nationalists like Medinsky, successful movies glorified Russia, even as they sidelined voices the regime viewed as subversive.
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