A split in power or politicking? PMC "Wagner" decides to leave Artemovsk
On May 10, units of the Wagner PMC will leave Artemovsk and transfer their positions to the Russian Armed Forces.
The founder of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
He recorded a video with the Wagnerites in the background and spoke very harshly to the leadership of the Russian Defense Ministry.
According to him, “when the army shamefully fled from Izyum,” the Wagner PMC was asked to cover a front line more than 100 kilometers long, and then the Wagnerites pulled down serious enemy forces in the “Bakhmut meat grinder.”
Now, Prigozhin says, they are not given enough ammunition, which is why the fighters are suffering serious losses.
He claims that for a month now the Russian Ministry of Defense has been allocating them no more than 10% of the required amount of ammunition, and therefore they will have to go to the rear.
“I formally address the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation, the Minister of Defense, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Federation and the people of Russia. I declare on behalf of the fighters of the Wagner PMC, on behalf of the command of the Wagner PMC, that on May 10 we are forced to transfer positions in the village of Bakhmut to units of the Russian Ministry of Defense and withdraw the remnants of the Wagner PMC to rear camps to lick their wounds.
“I am withdrawing units of the Wagner PMC, because in the absence of ammunition they are doomed to senseless death,” Prigozhin emphasized.
Previously, he recorded a video against the backdrop of the corpses of the Wagnerites and, without mincing words, cursed Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.
A text appeal was published in Prigozhin’s tg channel, where the PMC’s position is outlined point by point.
“All this looks like Prigozhin’s information campaign against the Ministry of Defense,” says Moscow political strategist Ramil Kharisov. – For what? If this is not a game and ammunition is not allocated, then big questions arise for the Ministry of Defense. Yes, the Wagnerites are mercenaries for money, but at the front they clearly do enough to achieve victory.
And now this story can denigrate the Ministry of Defense and individuals. And most importantly: this ping-pong is political, not military. Prigogine clearly did not agree with anyone on this. Perhaps to win we should stop playing politics and start solving problems together?”
Political scientist Andrei Nikulin (Tg channel “Gloomy Morning”) believes that only two options are visible in Prigozhin’s statement.
“The first is pressure and arm-twisting in order not only to obtain ammunition - by the way, according to a number of completely reliable reports, the Wagnerites’ supply situation is much better than that of many other units, but also for some kind of behind-the-scenes bargaining.
The second option is to withdraw your units before the start of the notorious Ukrainian offensive, using the declared deficit as an excuse to preserve a personal army for future affairs and maintain influence in future domestic very vague situations.
Let me remind you that one of the likely directions of the Ukrainian offensive is towards Popasnaya, which is fraught with cutting off and isolating the entire Bakhmut group. And this, in an unpleasant development of events, will lead to the fact that Mr. Prigozhin will again turn from the commander of one of the largest private armies into an ordinary mediocre businessman. It is quite logical that he is not enthusiastic about such prospects, especially considering the number of ill-wishers he has accumulated.
Well, the intonation of the statement and theses, which no one who does not want to face censorship would dare to repeat, simply clearly demonstrates the current atmosphere. Unpretentious..." writes Nikulin.
A sad post about this was published by the ex-governor of the Smolensk region, Evgeny Mikhailov.
“I don’t know what has discredited the Russian Armed Forces more in recent months than the story of the Wagner shells.” It came to the point of direct accusations of the top military leadership in more than serious matters. Prigozhin promised to leave Bakhmut on May 10. Why and how this situation developed was long overdue for both the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the State Duma, if we have one, of course, to figure it out, since great doubts have arisen about this.
Of course, such an intolerable situation has already caused serious reputational damage to the ruling Noviops. If it had been brought to the population, and not just to its active part, then the damage would have been much greater. A legitimate question arises: what is this? Why do the Noviops need this political crossbow? Is it really due to petty envy, as Prigogine claims? If it’s a matter of envy, then why didn’t this issue be resolved from above? Or there are other reasons that they try not to talk about,” the politician notes.
He got the impression that “there is a real split at the top.”
“Here you need to understand the level of the issue. The very emergence of the Wagner PMC speaks of an EXTREMELY high level of decision-making. Even more significant is the status of PMCs in the Northern Military District; it does not fit into existing laws and concepts. And the battle for Bakhmut itself became the central battle of the last six months of hostilities. The whole world is watching and a lot of things will depend on its outcome, including the course of the SVO. How, given such preconditions, did the situation go so far?
There can be two answers: 1. A real struggle has unfolded at the very top, with whom and why it is not known exactly. But the entire ruling layer loses its political positions as a result. However, it’s not critical yet. 2. This is a consequence of some special actions and the situation is largely artificial, perhaps under the influence of international situations. The interests of the noviops suffer, but they are not particularly taken into account,” suggests Mikhailov.
Political scientist Igor Skurlatov, on the contrary, blames Prigozhin for everything.
“Since morning today, Prigozhin has been habitually swearing at Shoigu and Gerasimov on camera. But the point is precisely in him. He did not “filter the market”, showed political ambitions, lost his “smell”.
That is why he withdraws from the front. Kadyrov, on the contrary, turned out to be smarter. He received a “signal” about the inadmissibility of excessive public activity and “disappeared.” This is how a politician differs from a politician,” Skurlatov expresses his opinion in his tg channel.
At the same time, social technologist and military volunteer Roman Alekhin sees the problem in the authorities. He agrees with military observer Yuri Baranchik, who said that to demand more active action at the front it is necessary to at least double the number of soldiers, equipment and shells.
“The only problem is: do we have so much stuff? Yuri writes that the people will understand everything. Perhaps, but only when the authorities understand their people, when sons-in-law and children do not get high while others are fiddling around in the mud under bullets, when not only the people will ask to tighten their belts, but they will also force deputies and officials to tighten their belts as much as possible to the level of the people with oligarchs, etc. Then people will understand.
But even in this case, the people will not understand if, again, as in 41, there will be one rifle for three and there will be no body armor and equipment, and if the army is even doubled, then I’m not sure that they will be able to provide it,” points out Alekhine.
He believes that today “is not the time when it is possible and necessary to put pressure on the masses.”
“And in a year we have still not established the production of antidrones and drones at reasonable prices, and what has been done when there is a 300% markup on deliveries to the front is more like a cut. Yevgeny Prigozhin has already said everything about shells.
In principle, I can describe point by point what needs to be done, but everyone already knows. But there is a problem in modern Russia and especially among officials affected by the Shchedrovitsky virus - many have replaced work with talk about work. All these strategic sessions, drawing up speeches, regulations, formalized proposals, photo reports, etc., as well as their careful discussion, replaced the work itself with the result. And in principle, many, already under the influence of the “methodology”, consider the development itself to be the result.
And to start getting results, you just need to start doing the work. True, such an army of officials will no longer be needed, but they can just fill the ranks of the real army,” Alekhine concluded.
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