The news that “wagner” PMC has lost access to recruiting in russian prisons confirms that the disputes between its owner ye.prigozhyn and the management of ministry of defence of russia are reaching a new level. Since February 9, after prigozhyn confirmed the ban on the recruitment of prisoners for the “wagner” PMC, the russian ministry of defense began to deal with this under the cover of the private military company “patriot”, which is directly associated with the minister of defense of the russian federation s.shoigu.
🔻 The kremlin’s practice of using PMC to carry out illegal tasks to support regimes loyal to putin in Africa has long been known. prigozhyn’s PMC became the most public, but putin did not want to rely only on “wagner”. This is how the shoigu-controlled PMC “patriot” emerged, which took over part of the kremlin’s orders for combat missions. This started the conflict between prigozhin and shoigu. From the very beginning, mercenaries from the “patriot” had much better financial security than the “wagnerites”. If the latter were paid 150-240 thousand rubles a month, then in “patriot” – from 400 thousand to 1 million. Currently, “patriot” is an even more closed and more complicated company than “wagner”. In the structure of the “patriot” there are more than 10 mini-armies with their own tasks, which work in Sudan, Gabon, the Central African Republic (CAR) and now in Ukraine. Another escalation between private companies took place in July 2018 in the CAR, when a group of russian journalists who came to shoot a documentary about the activities of russian PMCs died under unknown circumstances. Suspicion in the death of the journalists initially fell on militants from the “wagner” PMC, but the investigation of the “Dozhd” TV channel insisted on the involvement of the “patriot” PMC in the murder. Later, the investigation was closed, but independent researchers insist on the versions that either the journalists of “Dozhd” framed shoigu at the behest of prigozhin or shoigu really ordered the journalists to be killed in order to frame prigozhin’s mercenaries and “squeeze” him out of the CAR.
As you can see, shoigu’s mercenaries are not much different from prigozhin’s mercenaries. These are just competing “offices”, the owners of which are competing for proximity to putin’s “body” and the right to “lock in” financial flows from the kremlin’s military and political adventures abroad.
The result of the hardware struggle for closeness to putin was the confident victory of the army generals. shoigu’s influence group was able to prove to putin that prigozhin’s ambitions are greater than just the role of a military leader, and it is necessary to oust him from the kremlin pool. And the practice of giving citizens with a criminal past an indulgence for participating in the war, developed by prigozhin, has been passed on to putin’s current favorites.
In this regard, the information of the head of the opposition kremlin foundation “Rus which sits” o.romanova about the recruitment of women prisoners by the “patriot” PMC for the war in Ukraine is very interesting. After all, the idea of the possibility of their participation in the war belongs to prigozhin, who in February declared that he was “working in the direction” of using imprisoned women as snipers or members of sabotage groups.
Currently, prigozhin is increasingly in conflict with the russian elites and, in addition to the ministry of defense, has turned putin’s “petersburg friends”, the FSS, and the administration of the president of the russian federation against him.
It is not only prigozhin who is besieged by the ministry of defense. To curb the influence of the owner of “wagner”, the kremlin encourages other russian oligarchs to create their own private military companies. Thus, the ural oligarch i.altushkin tried to recruit prisoners in local colonies, and in an effort to consolidate his monopoly. He “threw out” the people of “putin’s cook” from there. The kremlin is also intensifying the creation of “pocket armies” of a.sarkisian, who is close to v.yanukovych and r.kadyrov.
What will the confrontation between prigozhin and shoigu bring to Ukraine?
Reshuffles in the army indicate that shoigu and gerasimov managed to get out of disgrace and regain their positions. “wagner’s” resources were used to stabilize the front and give the army a break, and when prigozhin’s mission was practically over against the background of large losses of personnel (the wagnerites lost more than 29,000 soldiers in Ukraine, or 77% of all personnel), the shoigu refused to provide his soldiers ammunition and “hangs all the dogs” for defeats at the front.
Moreover, a significant number of wagner unit commanders, who publicly expressed their disagreement with the ministry of defense of russia, began to die one by one. This became a warning for prigozhin, which could end his political ambitions.
❗️The conflict situation between the russian military and political leadership and prigozhin definitely destroys the management chain and weakens the combat coordination of the russian troops, especially on the eve of the predicted spring offensives of the russian federation and the counter offensives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Due to the loss of the former political influence, the effectiveness of the “Wagner” PMC operations in the Bakhmut area will decrease.
