The Kremlin has derided Zelensky, a former TV comedy star, as a “clown” since he was elected in 2019 and circulated rumors that he used drugs, with top officials dismissing him as a “junkie”. A day after launching the disastrous invasion of Ukraine in February, Putin called on Ukrainian troops to oust Zelensky, saying he would rather face Ukrainian generals than a “gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis in power”. The Institute for the Study of War said in its latest report on Tuesday that Mr Prigozhin was “establishing himself as a political force, using his popular position and his relationship with Wagner to criticize his opponents in elite circles”. In testimony to the British parliament on Tuesday, Russian dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky confirmed reports of Mr Prigozhin’s special position in Mr Putin’s court, describing him as an “important tool for the Kremlin”. “The number of meetings with the dictator is the only currency in demand in this regime, and Mr Prigozhin has a lot of those meetings,” said Mr Khodorkovsky, who was released after a decade in a Russian prison in 2013. and in the past. the richest man in the country.
