ISW: Maktstrid mellan högt uppsatta Putinkritiker

Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin (Russian: Евгений Викторович Пригожин; born 1 June 1961) is a Russian oligarch and a close confidant of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin was called "Putin's chef" because his restaurants and catering businesses hosted dinners which Putin attended with foreign dignitaries.Prigozhin controls a network of companies including Wagner Group, a Russian state-backed mercenary group operating in Africa, Syria, and Ukraine; and three companies accused of interference in the 2016 and 2018 U.S. elections. Prigozhin has long denied any connection to Wagner, however, a video in September 2022 showed Prigozhin in a Mari El prison recruiting inmates, promising them freedom if they served six months with the Wagner Group. On 26 September 2022, Prigozhin further admitted that he had founded the Wagner Group specifically to support Russian forces in the War in Donbas, in May 2014. Prigozhin has also long denied his role in Russian interference in U.S. elections, but in November 2022, he admitted his role in such operations, saying they would continue.Prigozhin himself spent nine years as a convict in prisons in the Soviet Union. According to an investigation by Bellingcat, The Insider, and Der Spiegel, Prigozhin's operations "are tightly integrated with Russia's Defence Ministry and its intelligence arm, the GRU". Prigozhin, his companies and associates face economic sanctions and criminal charges in the United States. FBI is offering a reward of up to $250,000 for information leading to the arrest of Prigozhin.

Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin (Russian: И́горь Все́володович Ги́ркин, IPA: [ˈiɡərʲ ˈfsʲevələdəvʲɪdʑ ˈɡʲirkʲɪn]; born 17 December 1970), also known by the alias Igor Ivanovich Strelkov (Russian: И́горь Ива́нович Стрелко́в, IPA: [ˈiɡərʲ ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ strʲɪlˈkof]), is a Russian army veteran and former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who played a key role in the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and later the war in Donbas as an organizer of militant groups in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR).While leading a group of separatist militants into Ukraine in the 2014 Siege of Sloviansk, Girkin gained influence and attention, being appointed to the position of Minister of Defense in the Donetsk People's Republic, a puppet state of Russia.Girkin was dismissed from his position in August 2014, after 298 people died when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down. Dutch prosecutors charged Girkin and three others with murder, and issued an international arrest warrant against him. Girkin has admitted "moral responsibility" but denies pushing the button. On 17 November 2022, Girkin was found guilty for the murder of 298 people, convicted of all charges in absentia, and issued a life sentence.Girkin, a self-described Russian nationalist, was charged by Ukrainian authorities with terrorism. He has been sanctioned by the European Union, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, and Ukraine for his leading role in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities have called him a retired colonel of the GRU (Russia's external military intelligence organisation).After his service in the war, Girkin returned to Russia as a political activist in 2014, reportedly believing that the "liberal clans" (liberal part of Russian elites) must be destroyed in favor of "law enforcement" ones. In 2016, he formed a political group advocating to "[unite] the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus, and other Russian lands into a single all-Russian state and [transform] the entire territory of the former USSR into an unconditional zone of Russian influence."During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Girkin regained attention as a milblogger, taking a strong pro-war stance but fiercely criticizing the Russian military for what he saw as incompetence and "insufficiency". In October 2022, Girkin joined a volunteer unit fighting against Ukrainian forces.