The Internet was shaken by an audio recording of a telephone conversation between two Russian rich men, Farkhad Akhmedov and the famous Russian music producer Iosif Prigozhin, Channel 5 reports. In a private conversation, rich men close to the regime share almost panicky moods with each other, quarrel and humiliate the dictator Putin and are indignant about the state of affairs in the army.
Considering the content, the conversation took place about 2 months ago. Interlocutors who express the sentiments of the elite of the Russian Federation, which has been enriched for many years at the expense of the regime's corrupt and dictatorial rules, are now gripped by fear and express acute dissatisfaction with what is happening in connection with the aggression against Ukraine.
Their assessments of what is happening and their efforts to distance themselves from the regime are indicative of the sentiment among Russia's elite as the result of a full-scale invasion. Both rich men faithfully served the Kremlin for many years and proudly displayed it in public, which allowed them to amass huge fortunes.
For example, Akhmedov represented the Krasnodar Krai and the Nenets Autonomous Okrug in the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, took an active part in the work of Putin's delegation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
In turn, Prigozhin was also and remains a sycophant of the regime. It was he who signed the appeal of cultural figures in support of the annexation of Crimea, and four years later he was officially Putin's "proxy" during the presidential elections. And on February 23 last year, he supported the Kremlin dictator's decision to "recognize" the separatist enclave in Donbas.
"He is a pawn in someone else's game. He is trying to say that he is as great as Vladimir Putin," Prigozhin said about the President of Ukraine in January of this year. And he publicly appealed to official Kyiv: "Enough to take weapons in the West".
However, in private conversations, the moods of Prigozhin and Akhmedov are diametrically opposed. Akhmedov is not shy in his expressions about the Moscow dictator: "He is Satan, f***... He is not in control, he did not control. He always spoke about what was written to him. He flew here and there. They made a media hero out of him. And in such situations, he turned out to be what he is now... Nothing!".
The interlocutors also discuss Putin's inner circle, the state of affairs in the army, the military command, and the development of the war in Ukraine.
But the most eloquent expressions of the Russian rich men characterize the prospects of the Russian Federation. "The question is, what will happen after them? And how will it be? [He] will leave, f***, on the one hand, the Kadyrov’s mercenaries, Prigozhin mercenaries, there will be oprichniks. There will be a "Makhnovshchina". They will wave daggers, sledgehammers," Akhmedov says almost in despair.
And he concludes: "There will be fascism. That's what will happen! A military dictatorship. You'll see. That's how everything will end."
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