Hours Before Declaring Mutiny, Prigozhin Secretly Planned Duma Speech to Win Back Putin’s Favor

Hours Before Declaring Mutiny, Prigozhin Secretly Planned Duma Speech to Win Back Putin’s Favor

On the evening of June 23, Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was preparing to give the order for his men to march to Moscow and demand the removal of Russia’s military leadership after months of rising tensions.  Meanwhile, a seemingly unremarkable event was unfolding inside the State Duma’s imposing Stalinist headquarters a few hundred meters from the Kremlin — one that nearly became an unprecedented political scandal.