Everyone should remember that in June last year, Wagner leader Priigzhin waved his army north, vowing to hit the side of the Qing monarch in Moscow, and the target of the attack was Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, "Chef Putin" accused Shoiguk of withholding Wagner's military salary, and also found various reasons to refuse to honor all kinds of material aid.
Fortunately, as a mutual friend of Prigozhin and Putin, Belarusian President Lukashenko stepped forward in time when the rebel front was less than 200 kilometers away from Moscow. Through telephone communication, the coup farce was successfully defused. But at this moment, the rift within Moscow's top leadership can no longer be hidden.
Although the perpetrator Prigozhin died in a strange plane accident, Shoigu did not publicly apologize and express condolences to the deceased, and Putin did not disown Prigozhin because of his betrayal, and he was even more saddened by the sudden death of his old friend.
Although Shoigu was already a senior official in the government when Putin took over the Russian presidency from Yeltsin, and since then he has risen to prominence and served as defense minister for a long time under Putin's favor. But in the strict sense of the word, Shoigu has never been a close confidant of Putin, but the eyeliner and spokesman of the Yeltsin family in the federal government.
Putin, of course, knows the strength of the forces behind Shoigu, so he "does not look at the face of the monk but looks at the face of the Buddha", and also acquiesces to him that he has certain privileges.
In fact, Prigozhin can have the reputation of "Putin's chef", which proves that he is by no means a fool and must be very good at being a man. And it is true, he and Shoigu also had a good honeymoon period. However, after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, especially after the battle of Bakhmut, the relationship between the two has taken a sharp turn for the worse, and Putin should also know a little about the real reason.
But as a politician in charge of the overall situation of Russia, Putin certainly knows the truth that the palms and backs of his hands are meat, and he knows who is light and who is heavy, and he can afford to put it down. Putin would never accept Prigozhin forcing him to choose between two and one choices, but after the assassination of his best friend, he silently vowed to help Prigozhin fulfill his last wish.
In fact, among Putin's few cronies and loyal subordinates, what is the only one Prigozhin who is bullied and excluded by Shoigu? "General Doom" Surovikin is another representative figure. What happened to these people has long alarmed Putin. But it is not too late for a gentleman to take revenge for ten years.
Around the time of the Russian presidential election, Putin arrested a number of Shoigu's cronies in the top echelons of the military in the name of anti-corruption. On the eve of the presidential inauguration, Surovikin was also appointed to directly arrest the deputy defense minister in front of Shoigu on charges of embezzlement of 70,000 yuan.
The foreplay has been done enough, Shoigu's prestige in the army has been discredited, and even if he does not become Minister of Defense, it will not cause a crisis within the army. So Putin decided to strike while the iron was hot, and immediately after officially succeeding as president of the Russian Federation, he announced that he would remain prime minister of the previous government to stabilize people's hearts, and then assigned Surovikin to return to the battlefield in Ukraine and serve as the commander-in-chief of the front line to boost the morale of the soldiers at the front.
In the end, what should have come is still coming: Putin appointed an economist, the first deputy prime minister of the former government as the defense minister of the new government, and Shoigu, full of "stories", transferred to the secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. Although this position is very important, and it is more of a person close to Putin, it has no real power.
This means that Putin has successfully relieved Shoigu of the military power that he has always held in his hands without organizing a drinking party. And now the military power of the Russian Federation is nominally in the hands of an economist, but in fact it is firmly controlled by Putin. This means that in the new term, Putin's power has reached its peak.
Putin, of course, understands that now is not the best time to fulfill the last wish of his old friend Prigozhin, but internal security risks also have to be guarded against. It's better to look under your nose than from the palm of your hand.
Moreover, no matter how great Sun Wukong's anti-bone ability is, it is impossible to escape the five palms of the Buddha.