It seems those cheering Prigozhin & his marauders really want more good old fashioned communism not less. Nothing is ever what it seems in Russia!
'The so-called Red Belt – areas that voted Communist in the Yeltsin era – is the heartland of Putin’s ‘real Russia’. Much of the Red Belt is located in Russia’s Southern Federal District, including the regions of Rostov and Voronezh taken by Wagner forces this weekend. Many in the Red Belt were disappointed by the realities of the shock transition to capitalism and the rigged version of democracy that replaced the USSR. When Putin came to power, he won over disillusioned Red Belters but Prigozhin’s recent antics have undermined his present unsuitability for the role of muzhik-in-chief. By tapping into anti-elitism and nationalism – forces that will be potent when Putin is gone – Prigozhin forced the Russian President into the unenviable position of defending disliked corrupt elites.