INTERESTING ARTICLE:
Paranoid Putin ‘turns against’ Wagner chief after the mercenary boss ‘failed to take the hint’ and kept bragging that his forces achieved more success than Russia’s
-Yevgeny Prigozhin has fallen out of favour with Putin after he gloated that his fighters were more superior and successful than Russia’s conventional forces
-Prigozhin claimed his fighters had single-handedly taken control of Soledar
-Putin is said to have felt threatened by Prigozhin’s rise and self-assertion
By Rachael Bunyan
Vladimir Putin is said to have turned against the head of the feared Russian Wagner mercenary group after he ‘failed to take the hint’ and kept on bragging that his forces were achieving more success than Russia’s army.
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has fallen out of favour with the Russian president after he continuously gloated his private paramilitary fighters were more superior and successful than the country’s conventional forces, experts say.
Earlier this month, Prigozhin bragged that his fighters had single-handedly taken control of the eastern Ukrainian town of Soledar, which has been razed by fighting.
Putin is said to have felt threatened by Prigozhin’s rise and tactless self-assertion, experts from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said today. This was evident, they said, when the leader pointedly did not credit Prigozhin or his Wagner forces for town’s capture.
Putin, paranoid about Prigozhin’s power, began to reintroduce himself as an involved wartime leader and met commanders after the Wagner boss posted a picture of himself with his mercenaries at the entrance of a salt mine in Soledar.
‘Prigozhin did not take the hint, if hint it was, but instead redoubled his efforts to assert himself by advertising the superiority and successes of his own troops,’ the experts from ISW said.
The Wagner boss instead tried to boost his standing by claiming he had arrived at the front lines near Bakhmut to speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky regarding the control of territories there.
‘His rhetoric and self-presentation had become overbearing and ostentatiously swaggering until things began to go south for him,’ the think-tank researchers said.
Since Putin’s war began, Prigozhin and Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov have been jockeying for power, suggesting that they could one day want to supplant Putin.
Prigozhin has been publicly critical of Russia’s army and military leadership.
‘Prigozhin likely imagined that his efforts in Ukraine would continue to lend him military and political power in Russia,’ ISW experts said.
But Putin has now begun marginalizing the Wagner group and has returned to relying on his conventional forces by appointing General Valery Gerasimov as Russia’s new military commander in Ukraine.
‘Prigozhin’s recent apparent fall from grace and influence likely reflects the real limitations on his actual power,’ the ISW said.
Experts suggested the return to prominence of Russia’s conventional military will make it less likely Putin will ‘give in to the crazier demands of the far-Right, pro-war faction’ in Moscow.
Prigozhin has approximately 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, of whom 40,000 are convicts and 10,000 contractors, according to UK and US intelligence.
The ISW researchers said the marginalization of Prigozhin, who has overseen the execution of deserters with sledgehammers, is positive.
But they said the re-emergence of the Russian military is ‘concerning’ as it means Russia could get back on course toward rebuilding its forces.
While Putin is now focusing on centralizing his armed forces and strengthening his command over them, this is not going to plan, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) said today.
Putin’s newly-appointed commander has seen a collapse in support just 12 days into the job after he brought in ‘farcical’ rules ordering troops to shave, the MoD said.
Gerasimov, Russia’s Chief of the General Staff of the armed forces, has been criticized by those within his own ranks for being ‘out of touch’ by prioritizing troops’ appearances over combat training.
Gerasimov, who was put in charge only 12 days ago on January 11, was ridiculed for his focus on troops being clean-shaven amid heavy Russian casualties.
The MoD said since Gerasimov took command, officers have been attempting to clamp down on non-regulation uniform, travel in civilian vehicles, use of mobile phones and non-standard haircuts.
The measures have been met with ‘sceptical feedback’ and some of the ‘greatest derision’ has been reserved for Gerasimov’s attempts to improve the standards of troops’ shaving, according to the MoD’s intelligence briefing today.
Officials in the Donetsk People’s Republic have described the prioritization as a ‘farce’ that would ‘hamper the process of destroying the enemy’, the ministry added.
The Wagner boss criticised Gerasimov’s leadership and said ‘war is the time of the active and courageous, and not of the clean-shaven’.
Britain’s MoD said Gerasimov’s prioritisation of minor regulations over combat training amid heavy casualties and operational deadlock will ‘likely confirm the fears of his many skeptics in Russia’.
‘Along with defense minister Sergei Shoigu, he is increasingly seen as out of touch and focused on presentation over substance,’ the MoD added.
Gerasimov, like Shoigu, has faced sharp criticism from Russia’s hawkish military bloggers for setbacks on the battlefield and Moscow’s failure to secure victory in a campaign the Kremlin had expected to take just days.
Only last October, Sergey Surovikin, nicknamed ‘General Armageddon’ for his reputed ruthlessness, was put in overall charge of Russia’s operations following a series of counter-offensives by Ukraine that turned the tide of the conflict.
But the reshuffle has meant Surovikin will serve as Gerasimov’s deputy.
The shake-up was designed to increase effectiveness of military operations in Ukraine more than 10 months into a campaign in which tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides, as well as hundreds of Ukrainian civilians, have been killed.
‘The increase in the level of leadership of the special military operation is connected with the expansion in the scale of tasks... the need to organize closer contact between different branches of the armed forces and improve the quality... and effectiveness of the management of Russian forces,’ Russia’s ministry of defense said earlier this month.
Gerasimov, considered the architect of Russian action in Ukraine as the country’s top officer for strategic military planning, has been widely blamed for Moscow’s military setbacks.
Such criticism was also shared by Kadyrov, who deployed his Chechnyan troops in Ukraine and repeatedly urged the Kremlin to up the ante in the conflict.
The criticism of Gerasimov from Prigozhin and Kadyrov rose to a high pitch in September, when Russian troops were forced to pull back from Ukraine’s northeastern region of Kharkiv by a swift Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Kadyrov accused Gerasimov of covering up for his protege, Colonel-General Alexander Lapin, who was in charge of troops that retreated from Kharkiv.
Yet Lapin was promoted to chief of staff of ground forces earlier this month. His promotion, with Gerasimov’s new appointment, appear to signal Prigozhin and Kadyrov have little influence over the Kremlin’s decision-making despite their increasing public activity.
It comes after Russian pro-war commentators were also left unimpressed by Gerasimov’s appointment: ‘The sum does not change, just by changing the places of its parts.’