On Wednesday, February 22, the day after President Vladimir Putin’s big speech, a shocking photo was shared in a Telegram channel of the Russian paramilitary Wagner group. The photo shows dozens of bodies, side by side on the ground, some still in their combat uniforms, others naked, all badly battered.
These are all Wagner fighters who died on Tuesday, the message said. “And those deaths could have been avoided if the Ministry of Defense had supplied enough weapons,” Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the mercenary group, wrote.
It is the umpteenth blow from the Wagner boss to the Kremlin. What is going on?
There is a love-hate relationship between Prigozhin and the Kremlin.
The Wagner group first became known in 2014, when the group assisted the Russian army during the annexation of Crimea. And Wagner also plays a major role in the war in Ukraine. For example, the paramilitary group captured the mining town of Soledar, north of Bachmut: Russia’s first military success in months.
But the group has not had many successes. Since the summer of last year, Wagner has been trying to take the Ukrainian city of Bachmut, without success. But according to Prigozhin, that is not their fault.
High death count
There is a kind of love-hate relationship between Prigozhin and the Kremlin, says Peter Wijninga, defense expert at The Hague Centre For Strategic Studies (HCSS). “They need each other, but there is absolutely no friendship between the two.”
“Prigozhin is very dependent on the Russian army for supplies of ammunition. And the Kremlin also needs him, because the Wagner group does not always have to comply with the rules that apply to the Russian army. This way Wagner could achieve more results. “
But meanwhile more and more Wagner fighters seem to be dying: especially the mercenaries recruited from the prison do not survive the war. According to it British Ministry of Defence about fifty percent of the prisoners fighting for the Wagner group die.
The high number of deaths is the fault of the Russian Defense Ministry, Prigozhin says now. Earlier, the Russian posted a video in his Telegram channel showing dozens of fallen soldiers. A caption stated that “hundreds of Wagner fighters are killed every day because the Ministry of Defense does not send the necessary equipment in time”.
Importance overrated
Prigozhin is not the only one who thinks that his group is becoming more and more in the background. According to the American thinktank Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Russian Ministry of Defense has probably stopped supplying weapons to Wagner. The reason: the “professionalization of Russian armed forces in Ukraine”.
Weakened Wagner forces have failed to make significant progress in Bachmut for several weeks, the ISW said, adding that as the Russian army replaces Wagner fighters, Prigozhin is losing influence in the Kremlin.
The Wagner group was a great help to the Russian military in the summer of 2022, “causing Prigozhin to overestimate his importance in the Russian military and political sphere,” according to the ISW. “But now that the Russian army is playing a more prominent role in Bachmut operations and is no longer so dependent on Wagner recruits, the Kremlin will no longer have to satisfy Prigozhin.”
In the meantime, the entire top management in Ukraine has also been replaced. In December last year, Valeri Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Army, was appointed the new commander of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. “Gerasimov has nothing to do with the Wagner group,” says Han Bouwmeester, senior lecturer in Military Strategy at the Netherlands Defense Academy. “Gerasimov has more and more Wagner fighters replaced by his own troops, who take over Wagner’s position.”
Prigozhin is clearly not happy about this, but isn’t his open criticism risky? “This can certainly get a tail for him,” says Wijninga. “And there is a good chance, as long as Putin is still in control. And then Prigozhin better stay away from high apartment buildings, so to speak. Because it can become that dangerous for him.”
