The confrontation between the owner of the Wagner mercenary company and the Russian Defense Ministry has reached unthinkable proportions for the Kremlin, which is obsessed with keeping the public agenda under control. The company of Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed Putin’s chef for his catering company, has released a photo allegedly showing dozens of his men dead in a massacre in Ukraine for which he blames Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu directly. “These comrades died yesterday. Because of lack of ammunition, as it is often called. A fifth, a fifth! Mothers, women and children will receive their bodies, who is to blame for their deaths? The culprit is the one who does not solve the ammo supply. at the end of the list [de suministros] the signature of [jefe del Estado Mayor ruso], Valeri Gerasimov or Shoigu. You don’t want to make the decision. They don’t want Wagner to exist,” he said, unusually harsh even for the entrepreneur.
The tension that has been latent for months has exploded in the past few days. “They didn’t give us ammunition and they won’t give it to us,” began the new audio broadcast of the businessman, whose power is insufficient to penetrate the first circle of the Kremlin but whose voice has shaken the very foundations of political stability. Prigozhin accuses Shoigu and General Gerasimov of not equipping their mercenaries with artillery, many of whom are recruited from prisons on promises of pardon if they survive six months at the front. “There is ammunition,” lamented Wagner’s owner, who added to the shocking image of the deceased a list of ammunition he needs to keep his offensive going at Bakhmut. “Point one, you need 105,000 units, they give you 3,600. Point three, you need 7,600, but they give you 600,” he complained.
In the fall, the businessman openly rushed onto the political stage. He first led the criticism against the high command and one of its generals, Alexander Lapin, for the setbacks that led to the Russian withdrawal from Kharkov and Kherson. Later, Prigozhin has claimed the Russian forces’ first moral victory since, the capture of Soledar, though the Russian Defense Ministry has never quoted him in its daily reports, indicating that this push was a joint action by the galactic units that make up their Assemble forces, including regular troops, mobilized battalions, volunteer militias, and mercenaries.
Prigozhin has found an ally in Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who also spoke out in September. “If today or tomorrow there are no changes in the strategy of special operations, I will be forced to turn to the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and the country to explain the actual situation on the ground,” said the head of the Republic of Caucasus.
Both Kadyrov and Prigozhin banked on another general, Sergei Surovikin, and won first prize with his appointment as sole chief of Russia’s armed forces in the Ukraine campaign that autumn. However, his joy was short-lived: Shoigu entrusted Surovikin with the orderly retreat from the west bank of Kherson and strengthening the defenses of the entire front while preparing the hundreds of thousands of civilians mobilized in the fall. In January, after completing his mission, Surovikin was dismissed as war chief to be succeeded by Gerasimov, who added this position to that of chief of staff. General Lapin was promoted to Chief of the Russian Ground Forces.
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At the same time, Shoigu fired the Russian armed forces’ logistics chief, Dmitry Bulgakov, in September. This soldier was Wagner’s most important link to the army, and his dismissal was celebrated even in the Duma. “I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time and I’m incredibly happy,” General and State Duma deputy Andrei Guruliov said at the time.
The Kremlin is holding back in the face of these quarrels. Shoigu, who was widely criticized for the failure of the blitzkrieg that began a year ago, is one of the figures closest to Putin and has been a staunch ally of his since the 1990s, when his popularity as an emergency minister was one of the trump cards that Putin brought to power. “An exchange of statements was published in the media, but this is an issue related to the development of military special operations, so I leave it to the Ministry of Defense. I encourage you to contact them,” Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to Prigozhin’s criticism on Wednesday.
Answer from Moscow
The department headed by Schoigu publicly responded to Wagner’s complaints on Tuesday. “Despite the difficult weather conditions in the area of the city of Artemovsk, 18 sorties of attack aircraft were carried out to support the offensive of the attack squadrons. Therefore, all statements allegedly made on behalf of the assault units about the lack of ammunition are absolutely false,” the defense said in a statement.
Wagner’s boss, who had avoided naming his problems until this week and only criticized “the leadership”, spoke more clearly this Monday. “I can’t solve the problem [de la munición] despite all my acquaintances and connections. Everything sinks and creeps. No decisions are being made,” he said in another audio leaked by his company, Concord. According to the merchant, Wagner even knows the ammunition batch numbers assigned to him. “But no one knows where the restrictions come from,” Prigozhin said. “Everyone is pointing their fingers up and saying, ‘Evgeny Viktorovich [Prigozhin]You have a difficult relationship there, you need to apologize, and that’s how your fighters will get ammunition,” added Putin’s cook.
Prigozhin’s political situation is interesting because he has gradually won followers who, due to his growing popularity, want to have their picture taken with him. Faced for years by the St Petersburg governor for refusing him contracts, in January Wagner’s owner managed to let another regional leader, the Kursk governor, train with his group for a week.
Kadyrov’s accession
Another award was received from the Chechen leader last weekend. “I am always happy about the successes of Wagner. It looks like a private military company, but it has achieved impressive results. And this despite the fact that their assault brigades are taking on an extremely difficult part of the work. Despite all the difficulties, Wagner achieves his goal in every situation,” Kadyrov said on his social media, where he also announced his intention to create another mercenary company in the future “to seriously compete with my dear brother.”
However, the bad reputation of Wagner’s tactics plays against Prigozhin and in Shoigu’s favour. Waves of undertrained soldiers against fortified Ukrainian positions cost thousands of lives and decimated their battalions to capture a non-war-critical city. Because of this, the Russian Defense Ministry can argue that its long-term goals require ammunition rationing. The war, as Putin indicated in his message to the nation this Wednesday, can be very long.
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