KEY POINTS
- One Russian elite was recorded calling Putin a ‘wimp’
- Another speculated that Russia will soon be under a military dictatorship
- One of the elites in the recording said some parts of the audio were ‘glued’ together
Two members of Russia’s elite circle have been recorded mocking President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu as Moscow continues to suffer immense losses in the war in Ukraine.
In a wiretapped phone call recording shared by the Russian Media Monitor on YouTube, Russian music producer Iosif Prigozhin and billionaire former senator Farhad Akhmedov were heard complaining about Russia’s current political situation amid sanctions from the West for its invasion of Ukraine.
“[Putin] doesn’t give a f**k about anything. And he doesn’t give a fuck about the people. He’s f**king Satan. Wimp,” one of the elites said.
“How will we clean all this up later? Fascism will be here, a military dictatorship. You’ll see. That’s how it’s going to end,” the other replied.
The elites also noted that Putin’s associates, state-owned oil giant Rosneft head Igor Sechin, state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec head Sergei Chemezov and National Guard head Viktor Zolotov have teamed up to bring down the defense minister.
“Look, they have teamed up. They blame everything on Shoigu. They call him a d**khead — behind his back, of course — and they now have the task of tearing him the f**k down,” a voice supposedly belonging to Prigozhin said.
Prigozhin initially dismissed the recording as “fake” but later admitted that some parts of it were authentic.
“This is being done on purpose to create a split between higher-ranking people, so to speak, and their supporters,” Prigozhin said in an interview with the Russian news website Fontanka, as translated via Google Translate. “I don’t know how it’s done. Of course, there are some real moments in the conversation. The voice is similar to mine. But it is not clear from what and how they glued. Need to figure it out.”
The recording comes as Russia continues to suffer from mounting losses in the war in Ukraine. As of Monday, Moscow was estimated to have lost a total of 171,160 military personnel in combat, including 610 who were killed over the past day, as per estimates from the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
The ministry also said that Russia has lost over 3,500 tanks, 6,900 combat armored machines, 2,600 artillery systems, 2,200 UAVs and 5,400 vehicles and fuel tanks.
