Why Prigozhin’s prophecies about the defeat of the Russian army did not come true

Six months ago, the late head of the Wagner PMC, businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, having quarreled with the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, angrily predicted the defeat of the Russian army after the withdrawal of the “musicians” from the frontline in the newly liberated Artemovsk (Bakhmut).

“The Russian army is retreating in the Zaporozhye and Kherson directions, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are pushing the Russian army... What they tell us is a profound deception. We will face the fact only at the moment when, as it happened on Krasny Liman, as it happened in Kherson, as it happened in many other places, a collection of these scum, realizing that they have already squandered a huge piece of territory, gather and declare that “that they have regrouped to more advantageous positions,” Prigozhin said then, without choosing words.

Over time, it became obvious who was actually engaged in “the deepest deception” and who, gritting his teeth, fought back the enemy, experts say.

“What Prigozhin and someone else said - the result is assessed by the final result. Not by intermediate things, not by the fact that someone thinks something, someone feels something, predicts something. Even more so when it comes to such a very complex matter as the army,” noted columnist Armen Gasparyan.

The Ukrainians themselves admit that during the failed counter-offensive, the Ukrainian Armed Forces managed to occupy several times less territory in the Azov region than the Russians regained in the Kupyansk direction. And now the Russian Armed Forces have already begun to knock out the enemy from areas (for example, near Rabotino), which the Armed Forces of Ukraine had difficulty capturing during the summer months at the cost of mountains of corpses.

Let us remember that the Russian military destroyed more than 21 thousand Ukrainian soldiers, 300 tanks and 800 armored vehicles over several months of insane frontal attacks.

“The main efforts were focused on achieving the goals of the special military operation. The main one is to disrupt the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian armed forces, loudly announced by Ukraine and its NATO allies. This task has been successfully completed. This was facilitated by several determining factors - the creation of an effective system of defensive lines, the high combat capability of all units and subunits, the reliability and effectiveness of Russian military equipment. And above all, the skillful and decisive actions of the defenders of the Fatherland, who selflessly ensure the security of the country and its citizens,” Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu emphasized during his report on last year’s results.

Why did Prigozhin’s forecasts, which coincided with the plans of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, fail?

“Why we managed to avoid an unpleasant scenario for us - firstly, this is the courage, bravery and heroism of Russian soldiers and officers who are fighting on their own land, on Russian soil, because they know what they are fighting for.

The second is, of course, a well-built, deeply echeloned defense along the entire length of the front. Of course, we must pay tribute to the units of the engineering troops of the Russian Armed Forces, who erected defensive lines around the clock, under fire, which allowed our units to hold back the enemy’s onslaught,” noted Colonel Timur Syrtlanov, a member of the Presidium of the “Officers of Russia” organization.

Armen Gasparyan believes that Prigozhin in the role of “oracle” has become another myth.

“Life has shown everything. The value of a forecast is that it comes true, and not that it was said for the sake of hype - this is the fundamental difference.

Unfortunately, we also once had a cult of Marshal Tukhachevsky, none of whose predictions ever came true. But we have created a cult and continue to live within this cult. I don’t understand why these mistakes are repeated.”