The Russian Defense Ministry planned to discredit the head of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Washington Post reports, citing leaked US secret documents.
Source: WP
Details: After Prigozhin’s sharp attacks on the leadership of the ministry, the department began to plan an information war against him.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not want to fight Prigozhin itself, but planned to “find allies with equal status to fight him.”
According to media reports, Prigozhin pleaded with Putin to continue recruiting mercenaries in prisons (after the Ministry of Defense forbade him to do so – ed.), train the newly mobilized, and facilitate the recruitment of foreign fighters, especially Afghans.
The leaked documents say that Putin ordered Prigozhin to resolve these issues with the Defense Ministry himself, effectively taking the side of his generals.
The Washington Post concludes that Prigozhin was allowed to berate officials as it was in line with Putin’s strategy of dividing political territory and the battlefield in Ukraine into separate rival groups so that none of them became too powerful.
The secret documents do not answer the question of whether PMC Wagner received ammunition or not, which Prigozhin has been complaining about in recent months.
The document noted that the information was obtained by intercepting or listening to messages.
What came before:
- On May 5, Prigozhin, in a letter to the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense, announced that he would withdraw Wagner PMC mercenaries from Bakhmut from May 10.
- He claims that the reason for this step is that the Russian Defense Ministry does not give his militants enough ammunition, and he does not want his people to be “doomed to a senseless death” because of this.
- The Armed Forces of Ukraine are skeptical about the statement of the leader of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, that allegedly the militants will start leaving Bakhmut on May 10.
- Later, Kadyrov offered his help in the occupation of Bakhmut.
- Prigozhin said that he would allegedly hand over the positions of his militants in Bakhmut to the soldiers of the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.
2023-05-06 13:26:54
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