/ world today news/ Today’s unconditional information bomb was the extremely emotional address of the head of PMC “Wagner” Yevgeny Prigozhin to the leadership of the armed forces, made against the background of PMC fighters, lined up in ranks, who died during the attack on Bakhmut.
In his appeal, Prigozhin blamed the death of his fighters personally on the Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, who, according to him, did not provide enough ammunition to the PMC.
Needless to say, this is not the first such appeal. About two months ago, a similar appeal was already made against the background of the dead.
But today, for the first time, Prigozhin announced the specific names of those he believes are responsible for the deaths of his fighters. And if the last time the leaders of the armed forces could limit themselves to neutral statements that the claims of the head of Wagner were unfounded and set the norms for the transfer of ammunition to the PMC, as well as promise to allocate additional limits, this time Shoigu and Gerasimov got a frank and unequivocal challenge. And we need to understand what is behind this whole situation?
Apparently, Shoigu, Gerasimov and Prigozhin are among the closest people to Vladimir Putin. He is related to Shoigu by a long friendship (we can remember their joint annual trips to the taiga), Gerasimov managed to overcome the worst military crisis caused by the ugly reform of the armed forces carried out by the team of the Minister of Defense Anatoly Serdyukov.
He managed to restore the army’s trust in the Supreme, undermined by the voluntarism and criminal incompetence of the “Serdyukovites”, and then successfully conducted a special operation to annex Crimea and defeat IS jihadists (banned in Russia) in Syria.
Yevgeny Prigozhin is also one of the closest people to the president, who has positioned himself as an absolutely devoted and faithful collaborator for many years. A kind of Malyuta Skuratov under Grozny or Menshikov under Tsar Peter I. And now inside this inner circle, which at the suggestion of the head of the PMC went into the public field, a real war broke out.
It must be understood that this was an absolutely conscious step on the part of Yevgeny Prigozhin. Knowing full well that, for all his merits, his political weight in the state bureaucratic machine was incomparable to the weight and influence of the main military leaders, and that with a “covert and behind-the-scenes” fight, he had no chance of winning, he simply pulled back the curtain and took out this fight in public space.
It must be said right away that the conflict between Yevgeny Prigozhin and the leadership of the armed forces of the Russian Federation did not arise today, but began to smolder long before the current military company, even during the military operation in Syria, where PMC Wagner, autonomously, often through the head of the military command, for example in approving state awards for its fighters, caused great irritation to the military leadership, and even then it was periodically “excommunicated” from the military support of the armed forces. But then all these “showdowns” were not shown in the public field. Why did this information bomb go off today?
There are several reasons for this. The main thing, as I see it, is subjective. Since the autumn of last year, the most difficult and bloody task of storming the huge fortified area of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which included the agglomeration of the cities of Soledar and Bakhmut, was entrusted to PMC Wagner.
And in four months, Wagner became not only the main provider of military news, but actually pulled out all the reserves of the armed forces of Ukraine prepared for the winter offensive, thereby giving the army valuable time to expand from a compact war machine for local wars to an army ready for a “great war”.
Of course, “Wagner” became the main information topic of SVO. It is difficult for me to judge how much this irritated the military leadership, but the regular “embargo” on the mention of “Wagner” in the electronic media had its say.
It is not clear whether the Department of Defense is the initiator of these restrictions or whether they come from, for example, the administration of the President. But Wagner’s “suppression” of information propaganda is an objective fact.
At the same time, the heaviest battles waged by the PMC required enormous resources. Both human and material. First of all, ammunition. And this is where the conflict actually broke out.
The PMC leadership began to regularly accuse the military leadership of not supplying enough ammunition. In response, the Ministry of Defense published information on the volume of transfers of shells, missiles and mines to Wagner.
Unfortunately, to this day there is no objective assessment of what the norms of ammunition consumption should be during the storming of such fortified areas, and therefore it is impossible to understand whether “a lot” or “few” of them are given Wagner. You can take the position of only one of the parties to the conflict.
Apparently, political conspiracy theories began to grow rapidly around him. Some experts suspected Prigozhin of political ambitions – that, having unleashed a war against the leadership of the Moscow region, he simply cleared his way to the top of the pyramid of Russian power, using the objective difficulties to move the army to a new level. And that the PMC as a whole is his personal army that he can use in the political struggle.
Others, on the contrary, believed that the military leadership, which had seriously relaxed in the initial stage of the SVO, had not reached a decisive turning point and thus dragged the country into a protracted war, was jealous and fearful of a successful warlord who demonstrated a after another military success and does everything to push him and devalue his victories.
I think that each of the stated positions has its own truth, but above it all there is another “floor” of conspiracy theories.
This is the position of the country’s political leadership, which actually monitors the battle unfolding in its immediate surroundings. If at the first stages it was clear that the “sides” are regularly called for dialogue and conflicts are again swept under the carpet, today it is already obvious that the version of the Leopold cat (guys, let’s live together!) will no longer work.
Organizational decisions will have to be made. What will they be? There are actually very few options. One of the possibilities is the withdrawal of PMC Wagner from the SVO and its return to normal business activity. Option in favor of the MoD.
But depriving the front of a unique tool – the 40,000-strong assault corps, hardened in the most difficult battles – is a huge risk. This could lead to a heavy military defeat in a key section of the front. And the rumors that spread today on the information networks about the withdrawal of Wagner from the front do not inspire confidence in me personally.
The second option is organizational decisions in the leadership of the MoD. This option also seems unlikely. It is possible only with the successful development of the Ukrainian offensive.
With such a development of events, resignations of such a level are quite possible. But they can hardly be expected as a way out of the conflict with the leadership of the PMC.
Both Shoigu and Gerasimov have extensive military experience, rely on the command and control vertical they have built, and managed to overcome the military crisis of September-October last year. The army increases in size and strength.
For his part, Prigozhin was behind the formation of a highly effective ground military structure of a new type, which has shown itself excellently in battles, and this cannot be ignored.
Moreover, he began to apparently strengthen the company’s military command, attracting prominent military leaders from among those who had been removed from the leadership of the armed forces.
Of course, the decision, whatever it is, will have to be made by the president, but he will have to take full responsibility for its consequences.
In my opinion, the most worthy way out of this crisis can be the initiation of a Duma investigation into the situation surrounding PMC Wagner and closed hearings in the Duma on the issue of the formation of recommendations to overcome it.
Translation: SM
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