"What do you need to do with an organization that you consider a terrorist group? You must destroy the leader of the organization, basically me, of course"

A calculated provocation wrapped in grim pragmatism, the statement reduces a sprawling conflict to a single point of failure: the leader. By equating the fate of an organization with his own person, Prigozhin insists on a personalization of power that both flatters his status and corners his adversaries. If authorities label the group a terrorist organization, he dares them to act in line with the label’s logic, decapitation, thereby exposing any gap between rhetoric and resolve. Either they escalate to the ultimate measure, or they reveal the designation as political theater. It is a trap of binary choices designed to test legitimacy.

The sardonic tag “basically me, of course” functions as self-aware bravado. It projects fearlessness while reinforcing his centrality: remove him and the structure crumbles. That claim serves several purposes. Internally, it reinforces a cult of personality and binds followers to a single source of authority, making succession, and thus defection, harder. Externally, it sets the terms of negotiation. If the leader is the linchpin, then he can bargain for immunity or influence in exchange for de-escalation, or he can threaten chaos by implying that any action against him triggers fragmentation and unpredictability.

There’s also an implied critique of the label “terrorist.” By forcing interlocutors to operationalize that label through lethal force, he highlights its instrumental use in politics: if they won’t go that far, perhaps the term is a cudgel rather than a principled classification. At the same time, he courts a martyr’s aura. Should he be targeted, the narrative of persecution becomes available to mobilize sympathy and harden loyalties.

Beneath the swagger lies an admission about the vulnerability of personality-driven enterprises. Tying organizational coherence to a single leader can deter adversaries in the short term, but it telegraphs fragility. He turns that fragility into leverage, wagering that the costs of acting on the label will outweigh the benefits for those who pronounced it.