Russian state television has begun an apparent campaign to discredit the head of the mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, after his failed rebellion in late June.
The most influential state channels presented what they said were photos taken during a search of his lavish home outside St. Petersburg, claiming that wealth had taken a very bad toll on him.
They also recalled his criminal past and suggested that he was driven by greed.
They did not, however, mention Prigozhin's persistent and often harsh criticism of the Russian military and the way the military command is conducting the war in Ukraine.
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This is the first time that the state media machinery has reported on Prigozhin so extensively, with many damaging details from his biography.
Until recently, Russian state television broadcast a positive image of Wagner, whose members fought alongside the Russian army in Ukraine.
"Let's look at how this fighter for the truth lived, someone who has two criminal convictions and who constantly claimed that everyone else was a thief," he told the hosts of the 60 Minutes show on the Russia 1 channel.
"Let's look at the palace built for this fighter against corruption and crime," said Eduard Petrov sarcastically.
The footage shows wads of cash, various weapons, the lavish interior of the house and vast gardens - along with a helicopter, an assortment of wigs and apparently fake passports issued to Prigogine under various names.
The footage was also shown on the main evening news of the channel, one of the most popular in Russia.
Gold bars, gold-plated furniture and sanitary ware were presented, as well as "suspicious packets of white powder," which Russia 1 suggested could be smuggled drugs.
They dwelled on Prigozhin's criminal past for a long time.
He received his first criminal conviction in 1979, aged just 18, and received a two-and-a-half-year suspended sentence for theft.
Two years later, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for robbery and theft, nine of which he served behind bars.
"They say that the experience and connections he got from the crime lord behind bars helped him go from selling hot dogs to an authoritative master of pots and pans," a Russia 1 reporter wryly noted, alluding to Prigozhin's previous role as a Kremlin food supplier .
This is why he was nicknamed "Putin's cook" in the Western media.
Watch the video: Yevgeny Prigozhin - from restaurateur to leader of the rebellion in Russia
One of the photos shown by Russian state television showed a sledgehammer with the inscription "Use in case of important negotiations".
This appears to be a reference to brutal sledgehammer murder of a member of Wagner accused of treason in November 2022.
That same evening, the First Channel of state television suggested that Yevgeny Prigozhin was linked to Western intelligence services, which were now "too shy" to admit involvement in his apparent rebellion.
NTV, one of the three most watched Russian television stations, claims that Prigozhina was driven by greed and a criminal past.
"What happened has obvious roots in his personality, business interests and his crime-ridden past," it said.
As for Prigozhin's alleged wealth, "the fight for the truth costs a lot of money," the NTV report said.
Until a few months after the start of the war against Ukraine, officials, the media and Prigozhin's press service denied the existence of Wagner.
For some time afterward, state television celebrated Wagner's participation in a "special military operation" in Ukraine.
Wagner all but disappeared from the state media as Prigozhin embarked on a "march for justice," vowing to punish Russian military commanders he accused of incompetence.
Prigozhin, who almost completely disappeared from social media after the uprising, did not comment on the photos and reports by Russian state media.
But a Telegram channel linked to Wagner claims that it is not unusual for a businessman as rich as Prigozhin to own an expensive house: "Then what is so incredible here, what is the 'wow factor' here?", they ask.
After previously denying that there were any links between Wagner and the state, President Vladimir Putin, speaking after the end of Prigozhin's rebellion, said that the state had fully financed the military company, spending about $2022 billion on it from May 2023 to May XNUMX. .
Watch the Wagner Rebellion video:
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