Diogenes the Cynic's Job in Russia just got harder

Diogenes the Cynic’s Job in Russia just got harder

Posted: August 27th, 2023

By Rob Dannenberg

Rob Dannenberg served as chief of operations for CIA's Counterterrorism Center, chief of the Central Eurasia Division and chief of the Information Operations Center before retiring from the Agency. He served as managing director and head of the Office of Global Security for Goldman Sachs, and as director of International Security Affairs at BP. He is now an independent consultant on geopolitical and security risk.

OPINION — No one should lament the passing of Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin. According to Russian officials, Prigozhin was a passenger on an Embraer Legacy 600 aircraft which crashed in the Tver region of Russia while en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg, Prigozhin’s hometown.

Prigozhin ran the Wagner Private Military Organization, which, in effect, is an overtly military organized crime group sponsored by the Government of Russia. Wagner is responsible for atrocities in Ukraine, Syria, Mali, Sudan, and likely other geographies. It has been designated a terrorist organization by several countries and organizations, including France, Ukraine and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. Cry no tears for Prigozhin or the other leaders of Wagner who perished in the crash. Certainly, they were “honest” men in the context of Putin’s Russia.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Subscriber+