John Lechner

kind of attitude, which is somewhat refreshing given kind of the bureaucratic elite that are surrounding Putin. And so Prodozhin eventually gets this job to provide the meals for the Russian military. And so that takes us to around 2014 or so, when Well, we have to go back a little bit further.

So while he's doing this work as a contractor, he also is looking for different ways that he can look good and get on Putin's radar. One of the ways he does it is there are massive protests against Putin's return to the presidency in 2012. And so Prigozhin puts together this kind of documentary that shows how all the protesters are fake, basically supported by the West. And he finances it himself.

So while he's doing this work as a contractor, he also is looking for different ways that he can look good and get on Putin's radar. One of the ways he does it is there are massive protests against Putin's return to the presidency in 2012. And so Prigozhin puts together this kind of documentary that shows how all the protesters are fake, basically supported by the West. And he finances it himself.

So while he's doing this work as a contractor, he also is looking for different ways that he can look good and get on Putin's radar. One of the ways he does it is there are massive protests against Putin's return to the presidency in 2012. And so Prigozhin puts together this kind of documentary that shows how all the protesters are fake, basically supported by the West. And he finances it himself.

It's not like Putin is doing this, but it's a way to virtue signal and show, hey, I'm furthering the cause of Putin's cause and Russia's cause more broadly. And so Prigozhin, As I said, Putin is coming to the presidency again in 2012. There are massive destabilizing protests against it.

It's not like Putin is doing this, but it's a way to virtue signal and show, hey, I'm furthering the cause of Putin's cause and Russia's cause more broadly. And so Prigozhin, As I said, Putin is coming to the presidency again in 2012. There are massive destabilizing protests against it.

It's not like Putin is doing this, but it's a way to virtue signal and show, hey, I'm furthering the cause of Putin's cause and Russia's cause more broadly. And so Prigozhin, As I said, Putin is coming to the presidency again in 2012. There are massive destabilizing protests against it.

He navigates it and gets back into power, but pretty much fairly quickly thereafter, another revolution is happening, this time on Russia's border in Ukraine, what became the Maidan Revolution in late 2013. For Putin, he sees these two things as connected, right? It's the West basically trying to overthrow Russia, overthrow his own regime, and they're doing it wherever they can.

He navigates it and gets back into power, but pretty much fairly quickly thereafter, another revolution is happening, this time on Russia's border in Ukraine, what became the Maidan Revolution in late 2013. For Putin, he sees these two things as connected, right? It's the West basically trying to overthrow Russia, overthrow his own regime, and they're doing it wherever they can.

He navigates it and gets back into power, but pretty much fairly quickly thereafter, another revolution is happening, this time on Russia's border in Ukraine, what became the Maidan Revolution in late 2013. For Putin, he sees these two things as connected, right? It's the West basically trying to overthrow Russia, overthrow his own regime, and they're doing it wherever they can.

And so the Kremlin in early 2014 makes a decision to annex Crimea, which is a peninsula on the Black Sea that is part of Ukraine. It had beforehand been part of Russia during the Soviet period, but it went to Ukraine during the Soviet Union and Russia's Black Sea fleet is there. This is the only warm water port that they have and it's important. And so amidst all of this chaos,

And so the Kremlin in early 2014 makes a decision to annex Crimea, which is a peninsula on the Black Sea that is part of Ukraine. It had beforehand been part of Russia during the Soviet period, but it went to Ukraine during the Soviet Union and Russia's Black Sea fleet is there. This is the only warm water port that they have and it's important. And so amidst all of this chaos,

And so the Kremlin in early 2014 makes a decision to annex Crimea, which is a peninsula on the Black Sea that is part of Ukraine. It had beforehand been part of Russia during the Soviet period, but it went to Ukraine during the Soviet Union and Russia's Black Sea fleet is there. This is the only warm water port that they have and it's important. And so amidst all of this chaos,

the Kremlin decides to annex Crimea. They use special forces to do it, but then they also rely on these kind of like right-wing Russian nationalist chauvinists, kind of the folks in sort of Russia's own nationalist militant movement to provide some of the security on the peninsula for the annexation. And after its success, the Kremlin thinks everything's done and dusted.

the Kremlin decides to annex Crimea. They use special forces to do it, but then they also rely on these kind of like right-wing Russian nationalist chauvinists, kind of the folks in sort of Russia's own nationalist militant movement to provide some of the security on the peninsula for the annexation. And after its success, the Kremlin thinks everything's done and dusted.

the Kremlin decides to annex Crimea. They use special forces to do it, but then they also rely on these kind of like right-wing Russian nationalist chauvinists, kind of the folks in sort of Russia's own nationalist militant movement to provide some of the security on the peninsula for the annexation. And after its success, the Kremlin thinks everything's done and dusted.

But unbeknownst to them at the time, or something that was unexpected, was that amidst this revolution in Ukraine, there's also an anti-Maidan movement, especially in eastern Ukraine, in this region called Donbas, which is economically and culturally closer to Russia.

But unbeknownst to them at the time, or something that was unexpected, was that amidst this revolution in Ukraine, there's also an anti-Maidan movement, especially in eastern Ukraine, in this region called Donbas, which is economically and culturally closer to Russia.

But unbeknownst to them at the time, or something that was unexpected, was that amidst this revolution in Ukraine, there's also an anti-Maidan movement, especially in eastern Ukraine, in this region called Donbas, which is economically and culturally closer to Russia.

And so as Ukrainians are taking over government buildings to overthrow the government of Yanukovych, anti-Maidan protesters are taking over these buildings in Donbas, in Donetsk, and in Luhansk. And this puts Putin and the Kremlin into a difficult situation because unlike Crimea, they didn't want to annex eastern Ukraine, Donbas. It's not that important to Russia.