Paul Goble
Staunton, Nov. 15 – Both activists who are opposed to the Vagner “private military company” and its actions abroad and the city government of the northern capital who have been stung by charges against its leaders by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who set up that PMC, are seeking to close the just-opened Vagner Center in St. Petersburg.
The Vagner Center was established to provide “free space” to patriots “interested in increasing Russia’s defense capabilities,” Andrey Sokolov of the Stoletiye portal says; but both those opposed to nominally independent military actors and those who don’t like Prigorzhin’s politics don’t see it that way (stoletie.ru/obschestvo/patrioty_peterburgu_ne_nuzhny_739.htm).
The opposition of the first has come in the form of letters posted on government sites; that of the latter, in the form of government efforts to challenge the Vagner Center’s ability to operate. The situation, as Sokolov reports it this week, is still extremely murky, but it may be part of a far larger political struggle and thus is worth noting.
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