British intelligence: Shoigu visit was response to Prigozhin

The British believe that Russia’s defense minister is sensitive to being compared to the Wagner boss.

Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Monday that the country’s defense minister Sergei Shoigu had visited the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which has been under Russian control since last year after bloody fighting and airstrikes.

Ukrainian authorities have previously estimated that at least 25,000 people were killed in the fighting for Mariupol, and that between 5,000 and 7,000 of them died in the ruins of bombed houses.

Shoigu, who has been defense minister since 2012, has received sharp criticism for strategy and leadership during the war in Ukraine, including from Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who last month accused Shoigu and other top defense officials of “treason”.

Possible answer to Wagner

This must be seen in the context of his visit to Mariupol, the UK’s Ministry of Defense believes.

– There is a realistic possibility that this was partly in response to recent videos showing the owner of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, visiting his soldiers at the front line, they write in an update on their intelligence.

They point out that the Wagner group and the Russian Ministry of Defense are in a high-profile dispute, and they believe that Shoigu is probably sensitive to being compared to Prigozhin.

They write that the only commander on the ground who was shown in the cliffs with Shoigu was General Rustam Muradov. He is responsible for Vuhledar i DonetskVuhledar i DonetskVuhledar is a small town in Donetsk Oblast in Ukraine, and in 2022 had just under 15,000 inhabitants. where several Russian attack attempts has failed for the past three monthsaccording to the British.

– Until recently, the Russian leadership probably saw a breakthrough in Vuhledar as a key to achieving significant operational progress in the Ukrainian defense lines, they write.

According to British intelligence, the Russian planners are probably faced with a dilemma, where they must choose between another attack in Vuhledar or to support the intense and bloody fighting in the north in Bakhmut and Kreminna.

Open conflict

Prigozhin is often called “Putin’s chef”, because he became very rich by getting a number of contracts for catering, including in the Kremlin.

He founded the Wagner Group in 2014 and after their controversial soldiers have been used by the Russians around the world, especially in Africa, over the years, since February 24, 2022, the Wagner Group’s soldiers have been central to the Ukraine war.

Prigozhin has long criticized Russia’s armed forces for their efforts in the war.

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In January, Prigozhin claimed that his soldiers had taken control of the nearby town of Soledar. Two days later, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that Russian forces controlled the city.

In February, he posted a message on Telegram in which he claimed that his mercenaries in the Wagner group are being directly opposed by the country’s top defense forces, and that the mercenaries are being denied new supplies of ammunition.

The Wagner group has its own forces on the battlefield in Ukraine and has been accused several times of very brutal warfare.

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These soldiers will probably be killed in large numbers. Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, claimed last week that Russia is losing seven soldiers for every Ukrainian soldier killed defending the city, writes the Wall Street Journal.

The Wagner group is said to have been responsible for large parts of the fighting on the Russian side for control of the city of Bakhmut, which can be considered a gateway to the Ukrainian part of the region called Donbas.