In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Russian politician and military officer, Sergei Shoigu. He’s best-known for serving as the Minister of Defence of Russia since 2012, for botching the invasion of Ukraine, and for being part of Putin’s inner circle.

Shoigu was born in the impoverished Tuva Oblast, a remote area close to the Mongolian border. Later he studied at the Krasnoyarsk Polytechnic Institute, and later graduated with a degree in civil engineering. In the late 80s, he became active in the communist movement and…

… in 1990 he got a job as a deputy chairman through his father’s connections. As Yeltsin came from a similar background, Sergei quickly gained his trust. He eventually became the head of the Russian Rescue Corps, an agency responsible for the rescue and disaster response…

…system. In case of a disaster, he would be the first to appear at the site, thus presenting himself as the hero. Russia-expert Mark Galeotti has stated that Shoigu had a “big PR team” to help with this. This role made Shoigu very popular, and he stayed on the job for 21 years.

Unlike everyone else in Putin’s inner circle, Sergei wasn’t educated in St. Petersburg or Moscow, nor has a KGB background or is an old buddy of Putin’s from his St. Petersburg days.
Both Putin and Shoigu regard themselves as “muzhiks”, or real Russian men.

Shoigu has allegedly convinced Putin of taking baths in blood extract from severed deer antlers in order to improve his cardiovascular system and to rejuvenate his skin.

Shoigu was appointed as the Minister of Defence in November 2012. He was considered as a weird choice…

…for the role, as he’s never served in the military. His predecessor, another civilian called Anatoly Serdyukov, had tried to reform and modernize the Russian army by reducing work force and implementing new taxation. Everyone in the army hated Serdyukov for his reforms, …

…and to gain the trust and to be credible in the eyes of the real generals, Shoigu gave military people cozy jobs as deputy ministers and wore an army general’s outfit, regardless of never spending a day in the army. Shoigu also wanted to decorate his uniform with a bunch…

…of medals, but the problem again was that he didn’t have any experience on the battlefield.

To solve this problem, he came up with hundreds of new medals and then awarded the most prestigious to himself.

Days before the invasion in Ukraine begun, Shoigu met with the UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, denying any upcoming attacks in Ukraine. At the beginning of the invasion, Shoigu disappeared for almost two weeks due to the complete failure of Russia’s war effort.

Oleksandr Novikov, the head of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention of Ukraine (NACP), sent a mocking letter to Shoigu in March 2022, thanking him for “ensuring the high level of corruption in the Russian Army”. With the letter he accompanied pictures of egg trays used as tank…

…protection, cardboard used in bulletproof vests, and the use of bright-colored civilian vehicles to transfer the Russian troops.

Last year, Ukrainian pro-Russian politician Kirill Stremousov suggested that Shoigu should “shoot himself” over Russia’s military losses.

Stremousov died in a car accident on 9 November 2022, just a few hours before Shoigu ordered the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson. Igor Girkin agreed with Stremousov, stating that Shoigu should be “executed by firing squad”.

Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin absolute loathes Shoigu. Since the beginning of the war, he’s been criticizing Shoigu, called for his son-in-law to be drafted, and lately blamed Shoigu for not delivering enough ammunition to Wagner fighters around Bakhmut.

On 11 May 2023, Prigozhin wrote a derogatory letter to Shoigu, calling him to arrive to the front to evaluate the situation due to Shoigu’s “multi-year combat experience”.

Like Prigozhin, Shoigu has his own private military company called PMC Patriot.

It was deployed to fight in Ukraine in December 2022 around the town of Vuhledar. This front has been a disaster to the Russians, PMC Patriot & of course to Shoigu, as Ukrainian officials have claimed that the Russians have lost over 130 tanks & APCs in the course of the battle.

Shoigu’s rhetoric regarding Ukraine has been predictable. He’s claimed that Russia is at war with the “collective West”, and that Russians and Ukrainians are “a single people”. He’s tried to promote a false flag attack, claiming that the Ukrainians are preparing a “dirty bomb”.

As is tradition in Putin’s inner circle, Shoigu is living a lavish life in his $18 million mansion in Barvikha, registed in the name of his family members. Shoigu’s declared annual family income at the time of purchase was $1.33 million, and his wife bought a luxury apartment in Moscow’s Sparrow Hills district the same year…

The Insider has reported that Shoigu’s mistress, stewardess Elena Shebunova, quickly became a millionaire after she started her affair with Sergei. She moved next door to the Rotenberg oligarch family, …

…in an estate also worth $18 million. She also got sewing, food and construction projects worth over $100 million ordered by the Defense Ministry. Elena was recently exiled from Lithuania after being considered a security threat.

Shoigu’s youngest daughter, Ksenia, who also officially owns the aforementioned mansion, is married to sports blogger Alexei Stolyarov. Recently, Stolyarov visited Luhansk for a PR trip to support Russia’s failing “special operation” in Ukraine.

As is tradition, Ksenia and Alexei also traveled around the “decadent West” and various NATO countries, while Sergei was threatening the West with nuclear war.

Here they are pictured in Florence, Italy, in 2021.

Shoigu was sanctioned by the EU, the US, the UK and Canada immediately after the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The Siberian Times have reported that Sergei is a polyglot and known to speak eight languages.

But it seems that he’s most fluent in bullshit.