The Value Of The Idea Imported From The US, Former President Putin's Adviser Urges To End The Mercenary Group After Wagner's Insurgency

JAKARTA - Former President Vladimir Putin's Chief of Strategy urged an end to groups of mercenaries in Russia, after the insurgency by Wagner Group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, warned such groups were disrupting the command chain.

Vladislav Surkov, once known as the Kremlin's 'dolleer' both by friends and opponents, said private military companies "are ideas imported from the United States, created to engage in the proxy war.

"How can a military unit be private in our understanding? This is not in accordance with Russian political, managerial, and military cultures at all," said Surkov, who left the Kremlin in 2020, in an interview published by his colleague, Alexei Chesnakov. June 27.

Such groups, said Surkov, risk turning Russia into a "former Eurasian ethnic zone" while dividing the command of the armed forces, as Russia went to war in what the Kremlin called a "special military operation" in Ukraine.

"Why do we need them today, when we openly participate in the battle for Ukraine? This is not a proxy war, this is a SVO," said Surkov.

"The army must be strengthened not only with weapons, but also with the command unit," he said.

As the first deputy head of the Kremlin government from 1999 to 2011, Surkov helped Putin form his strictly controlled political system. He then worked in government and then returned to the Kremlin as Putin's adviser.

Surkov himself described Prigozhin as "oligarki", detailing the criminal past of the mercenaries boss in St. Peterburg.

In 1981, at the age of 20, Prigozhin was sentenced to 13 years in prison for robbery and assault, including strangling a woman to faint, according to court documents at the time.

"That's all you need to know about Prigozhin," said Surkov.

Separately, Prigozhin said on Monday that the actions taken by his troops at the end of last week were not meant to overthrow the Russian government, but rather a form of protest against what he said was an ineffective war in Ukraine.

Prigozhin last month said the nickname "koki Putin" given him was stupid because he couldn't cook, insinuating that the nickname "Putin carpentry" might be more appropriate.