Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of the Wagner Group military company, arrives on the funeral ceremony on the Troekurovsky cemetery in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, April 8, 2023.
AP
Tensions arose this week between the Kremlin and the pinnacle of Russia’s private military company, the Wagner Group, as President Vladimir Putin gave the impression to be taking sides in a long-running and highly public dispute between Russian mercenaries and the defense ministry.
It is well-known that there is no love lost between the sincere head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and the Russian Ministry of Defense; Prigozhin openly and repeatedly criticized the ministry’s top officials, including Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in profanity-filled tirades criticizing Russia’s military strategy in Ukraine.
He also accused senior defense officials of treason and deliberately withholding ammunition for the Wagner Group, which spent months fighting in Bakhmut, the epicenter of intense hostilities in Ukraine.
Prigozhin was very careful to not direct public criticism of the Kremlin and Putin, and is one in all the president’s longtime collaborators and supporters.
Nonetheless, tensions now look like emerging between Prigozhin and the Russian leadership, putting him in a precarious position with the Russian president.
While Wagner had his uses in Ukraine (and was probably in a position to boast some gains where the regular Russian army didn’t), the Russian defense ministry was desperate to limit the influence of the group, and Prigozhin in particular.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) talks with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (R) and Chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov (L) after a meeting of the Board of the Russian Ministry of Defense on December 21, 2022.
Mikhail Klimentev | AFP | Getty’s paintings
The latest move to stop the mercenary group got here last Saturday, when Shoigu announced that “volunteer formation” and personal military firms would need to sign contracts directly with the ministry by July 1.
The Ministry stated that “this can give volunteer organizations the mandatory legal status, create a common approach to organizing comprehensive support and implementing their tasks.” – reported the state news agency TASS.
Prigozhin reacted to the announcement with characteristic resistance, stating on Sunday that “Wagner won’t sign any contracts with Shoigu”, adding that the order doesn’t concern the Wagner Group.
But then a move towards enforcing contracts with private military firms was explicitly backed by Putin on Tuesday, with the president saying he wants a change in the law to legalize their activities.
“This is the one strategy to provide social guarantees (to mercenary fighters), because there is (currently) no agreement with the state or the Ministry of Defense,” Putin told a group of war correspondents.
Interestingly, despite Putin’s comments, Prigozhin again refused to sign any deal, saying on Wednesday that “once we began this war, no person said that we could be obliged to make deals with the Ministry of Defense.” he said on Telegram in line with google translate.
He added that “not one of the Wagner PMC fighters are able to go down the trail of shame again. Nobody will sign contracts anyway.”
An uncertain place for Prigozhin
Prigozhin said he was confident a compromise could possibly be found that might avoid having to make a deal with the defense ministry, but analysts say the mercenary chief is on shaky ground in his apparent opposition to Putin.
The UK Ministry of Defense highlighted rising tensions on Thursday, noting that “For several months, Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin has been directing venomous criticism to the MoD [Ministry of Defense] hierarchy, but subject to Putin’s authority.”
It has now been noted that “Prigozhin’s rhetoric is evolving towards opposition to broader sections of the Russian establishment.” He warned that July 1 – the deadline for volunteers to sign their contracts – “is more likely to be a key point in the dispute”.
The head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, attends the funeral of Dmitry Menshikov, a Wagner Group fighter who died during a special operation in Ukraine, on the Beloostrovskoye cemetery near St. Petersburg, Russia, December 24, 2022.
AP
Prigozhin became an increasingly famous figure, moving into independence Levada Center index on Russian trust in public figures for the primary time in May — giving it a rating of 4%. This puts him on the identical level of trust as former President Dmitry Medvedev and Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov.
Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior lecturer on the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, noted on Wednesday that he could find himself increasingly vulnerable as he becomes more known and is seen as a potential challenge to Putin.
“Prigozhin plays independent politics, upping the ante and testing system vulnerabilities on an ongoing basis. But each technically and physically this is only possible so long as this shaved enfant terrible is useful to Putin,” Kolesnikov said. comments published in Carnegie Politika.
Nonetheless, he noted that “in the present political system … Prigozhin will be anti-elite—and popular as a result—so long as he is for Putin.” It might take the slightest sign from Putin to make Wagner’s boss disappear from the data space (actually from other spaces), “he said.
While Prigozhin represents “an emerging leader who speaks to the people without intermediaries, as befits a populist and true leader,” Kolesnikov said, “the one problem is that Russia already has such a leader: President Vladimir Putin.”