Yevgeny Prigozhin succeeded in pushing through the much-needed reform of improving communication between Wagner and the Defense Ministry via the newfound role that Sergey Surovikin is taking up, which is very impressive when considering how difficult it is to change anything within Russian bureaucracy.
"...which serves Russia’s objective national interests..."
This has 'Putin' written all over it.
"...considering how difficult it is to change anything within Russian bureaucracy."
That certainly was true, as I experienced it, when the Soviet Union was collapsing, and for many years afterwards. And everybody knew everything about the terrible history [yawn]. It was ten years after Putin had come to power — a bit less, actually: at the 2007 Security Conference in Munich — before I really sensed how greatly things could change. The hours-long press conferences — the warmth, humour, and sincerity of the man — did much to help me understand how Russia had moved so far beyond the self-imposed limitations of the old, fossilised Western or Anglo-Saxon-style democracies. There's a good reason why Western politicians struggle to achieve anything like approval among anything like a representative (<50%) proportion of the population, while Putin's rarely drops below three-quarters of the population's approval. A damn good reason... But you really need to be comfortable in Russian to understand it. Confronted with such a reality and no adequate means of understanding, the fear aided and abetted by the unassailable knowledge that the English language will always and forever be the most important forever and ever and ever... It's hard to blame the Americans for being so afraid.
Anyway, this is the main point: "Anything that distracts them from this must be adequately dealt with right away in order to avoid impeding the fulfilment of their sacred duty." If the Americans had any idea how much they've unwittingly done to force the Russians to appreciate how lucky they are, and make them realise how lucky they have been for the past quarter-century... Wow, thank God for the Americans(' stupidity)!
But it's not as simple as that; they're not just stupid. There are all sorts of factors at play here, like jealousy (mainly) and lack of opportunity and being manipulated by third parties...
"...which serves Russia’s objective national interests..."
This has 'Putin' written all over it.
"...considering how difficult it is to change anything within Russian bureaucracy."
That certainly was true, as I experienced it, when the Soviet Union was collapsing, and for many years afterwards. And everybody knew everything about the terrible history [yawn]. It was ten years after Putin had come to power — a bit less, actually: at the 2007 Security Conference in Munich — before I really sensed how greatly things could change. The hours-long press conferences — the warmth, humour, and sincerity of the man — did much to help me understand how Russia had moved so far beyond the self-imposed limitations of the old, fossilised Western or Anglo-Saxon-style democracies. There's a good reason why Western politicians struggle to achieve anything like approval among anything like a representative (<50%) proportion of the population, while Putin's rarely drops below three-quarters of the population's approval. A damn good reason... But you really need to be comfortable in Russian to understand it. Confronted with such a reality and no adequate means of understanding, the fear aided and abetted by the unassailable knowledge that the English language will always and forever be the most important forever and ever and ever... It's hard to blame the Americans for being so afraid.
Anyway, this is the main point: "Anything that distracts them from this must be adequately dealt with right away in order to avoid impeding the fulfilment of their sacred duty." If the Americans had any idea how much they've unwittingly done to force the Russians to appreciate how lucky they are, and make them realise how lucky they have been for the past quarter-century... Wow, thank God for the Americans(' stupidity)!
But it's not as simple as that; they're not just stupid. There are all sorts of factors at play here, like jealousy (mainly) and lack of opportunity and being manipulated by third parties...
But I digress.