A mercenaries’ war How Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to a ‘secret mobilization’ that allowed oligarch Evgeny Prigozhin to win back Putin’s favor
Evgeny Prigozhin
Political squabbles and personal conflicts nearly cost Evgeny Prigozhin his prized position in Vladimir Putin’s circle of trust. Over the course of the war in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry has gradually erased the boundaries between mercenaries and the military. The armed forces essentially commandeered the recruiting network built by the Wagner Group (the private military company that Prigozhin finances) and largely excluded the organization itself from the initial invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Russian army and other mercenary groups performed so poorly on the battlefield, however, that Moscow eventually called on Wagner’s regulars, restoring Prigozhin to the president’s good graces.
Russian military leaders reportedly got the idea in 2010 to create a mercenary group they could control. The Joint Staff tapped catering oligarch Evgeny Prigozhin to manage the operation using money earned from lucrative government contracts to supply the armed forces with food. The new private company would be based in Krasnodar near the Main Intelligence Directorate’s 10th brigade.
The Wagner Group remains completely dependent on the military’s infrastructure and equipment, but it has established an independent network of recruiters, sources close to the company told Meduza.
Ahead of the invasion of Ukraine, as part of its wider effort to manage mercenary groups more directly, the Defense Ministry seized control of the online network that Wagner used to advertise vacancies. “They basically said, ‘We need your brand because it’s well known, but we’re going to do the recruiting ourselves, using your brand,’” a person close to the company’s management told Meduza, saying that the military has damaged Wagner’s reputation by lowering standards. “They’re hiring without even testing for drugs,” he said.
Relationships and rivalries
Even recruited this way, Wagner Group mercenaries didn’t arrive on the frontlines in Ukraine until late March 2022. Months earlier, when Russia was still preparing for the invasion, Evgeny Prigozhin’s political clout was suffering. In fact, multiple sources told Meduza that he was at risk of falling out of favor with the presidential administration and Russia’s Defense Ministry.
On the eve of February 24, Prigozhin “was unsuccessfully trying to reach his contacts at the [General Staff’s Main Directorate],” says Bellingcat executive director Christo Grozev, “but he only succeeded once the invasion had begun.” Another source familiar with the matter told Meduza that Prigozhin had refused before the war started in February to mobilize his mercenaries for Ukraine without direct orders from President Putin.
According to two sources close to the Kremlin and another two with ties to the oligarch, Prigozhin disapproves of Sergey Kiriyenko, Putin’s domestic policy czar, particularly for supporting St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov. The feud between Prigozhin and Beglov became a public controversy last winter when the oligarch started criticizing St. Petersburg’s regional government for failing to remove snow and trash. (Prigozhin even allegedly hired Leningrad band leader Sergey Shnurov to write and perform a song mocking the governor.)
The clash has involved both money and politics, including lucrative state contracts to renovate Konyushennaya Square’s historic stable building, as well as ballot access in 2021 for Prigozhin’s preferred local legislative assembly candidates.
Despite the war in Ukraine, the oligarch hasn’t backed down. On July 5, 2022, in an interview with a media outlet that he controls, Prigozhin called Beglov a “tyrant-governor” who “doesn’t want to get anything done.” These days, Prigozhin’s main gripe concerns state contracts to develop the Gorskaya tourist zone on the Gulf of Finland. Last year, a business affiliated with Prigozhin signed an agreement with the St. Petersburg authorities to complete this project, but officials ultimately hired a company with ties to Gazprom, rejecting Prigozhin’s plans to build manufacturing plants inside the tourist zone.
Evgeny Prigozhin has also quarreled with Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, accusing his office of using ineffective, “outdated methods” in Syria. Meanwhile, Shoigu is reportedly unhappy with Prigozhin’s catering services, which is apparently why the oligarch has lost many of his military contracts in recent years. (Representatives for Evgeny Prigozhin and Russia’s Defense Ministry declined to comment on these allegations.)
Prigozhin also enraged Russia’s military high command in February 2018 when the Wagner Group attacked a gas processing plant in Deir ez-Zor, Syria, provoking a large U.S. response that killed dozens of Russian mercenaries. Journalists at The Bell later learned that the Wagner Group acted without informing the Defense Ministry, executing a private deal with the Assad regime that entitled the company to a quarter of all proceeds from oil and gas produced at “liberated” facilities in the area.
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https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/07/14 ... naries-war
