Most Russians (61%) have a positive attitude towards the owner of the private military company “Wagner” – Evgeny Prigozhin. The number of positive assessments of Prigozhin steadily increased throughout the winter of 2023 and was recorded at the end of last spring. Only 13% of Russian citizens answered that they have a negative attitude towards Evgeny Prigozhin, and this figure has remained virtually unchanged for the last six months. Prigozhin’s recognition among Russian society has steadily grown – if in December 2022, 41% of respondents did not know who he was, by June, their number among Russian citizens was only 17%. Even the ban on his appearance on federal and other Russian media outlets did not affect the increase in Evgeny Prigozhin’s recognition among Russian society. As evidenced by the results of the IKAR media monitoring of the Russian press for the last six months, Prigozhin consistently ranked in the top 5 most cited persons almost every week, along with Putin and other high-ranking politicians.
Half of Russian society (50%) believes that Evgeny Prigozhin has a political future in Russia. Slightly more than a third (36%) of respondents, on the contrary, are confident that he does not have such a future.
More than a half (53%) of Russians attribute the public conflict between Evgeny Prigozhin and the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense to Prigozhin’s desire to correct the mistakes of the Ministry of Defense and help the army. In addition, 29% believe that the root of the conflict with the owner of the private military company “Wagner” lies in the incompetence of the leadership of the Ministry of Defense. Every fifth respondent believes that the cause of everything is the political ambitions of Evgeny Prigozhin.
