An authority on Russian private military contractors has suggested that Vladimir Putin cannot just “kill his way out” of his conflict with the rebellious Wagner group.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the militia’s head, recently abandoned an advance on Moscow, and the president is attempting to quell his disobedience.
Prigozhin has been expelled to Belarus, and his old ally has threatened retaliation against the Wagner officials who are to blame.
But Alec Bertina, an all-source analyst at the Grey Dynamics private intelligence firm, said that the financier and his commanders still exert significant influence.
Assassinations and mysterious deaths routinely befall high-profile Russians who fall out of favour with the Kremlin, but this option would cause more problems than it would solve for Putin, Bertina told Metro.co.uk.
Prigozhin’s forces captured the city of Rostov-on-Don, a key Russian military centre, before a Wagner convoy headed north in the biggest challenge to Putin in more than 20 years.
‘Vladimir Putin knows he cannot simply kill his way out of this situation by liquidating Prigozhin and the Wagner leadership,’ Bertina said.
‘There is a real mess for everyone in the Kremlin to clean up.
‘This was very well planned and the question remains about the people who masterminded this with Prigozhin.
‘They were seemingly able to come up with a significant operation involving the seizure of the southern military command of Rostov, an important command and control node.
‘For the MoD to kill its way out of the problem they would need to liquidate and reconstitute those Wagner units, which is resource-intensive at a time when they are short of capable officers.’
Speaking from the Kremlin in a pre-recorded televised address yesterday evening, Putin said that those involved in the ‘criminal activity’ would be brought to justice. He is now inviting the mercenaries to sign over to Russia’s Ministry of Defence, but it remains to be seen if the battle-hardened fighters are prepared to abandon Prigozhin, who is reportedly staying at a hotel in Minsk, the Belarusian capital.
‘A lot of the Wagner operators will be upset at Prigozhin for ending this, as almost every combat element that has served in Ukraine has some animosity towards the MoD,’ Bertina said.
‘There is a balance between ensuring loyalty in your forces and not taking cut-throat measures that will backfire and make Russia look worse and more incapable than it already is. Putin does not have unity of command; he is a wartime leader who can’t control his men and has been left informationally vulnerable with Ukraine compelling Russian soldiers to surrender rather than fight for a regime on its last legs. In Russia, the elites are panicked and the existing discontent among the oligarchs will only grow.’
Prigozhin had repeatedly launched blistering video attacks on Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu and army chief Valery Gerasimov for failing to provide his mercenaries with enough ammunition during the bloody fight for the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut.
On Friday, he accused the Russian Ministry of Defence of launching a missile attack on one of his camps, before seizing Rostov, headquarters of Russia’s southern military district, the following morning. His units then advanced within 125 miles (200km) of Moscow.
Putin said the ‘rebellion’ was a ‘stab in the back’ before his former chef stood his troops down and apparently agreed to go into exile under a deal brokered via Belarussian president Aleksandr Lukashenko.
Wagner, along with all Russian private military companies, now has until July 1 to sign a contract bringing the group under the auspices of the Russian Ministry of Defence.
In his speech, Putin tried to persuade the militia’s estimated 50,000 fighters and leaders in Ukraine to come under the ministry’s command. The other stated options were to retire and go home or to go to Belarus.
The military’s supreme commander also praised Wagner commanders, which was framed by the US Institute for the Study of War as ‘likely critical’ to retaining them and maintaining the group’s effectiveness.
The research organisation said: ‘‘The future of the Wagner Group is unclear, but it will likely not include Yevgeny Prigozhin and may not continue to exist as a distinct or unitary entity.’
Putin further spoke at a speech in a Kremlin square today, praising the country’s military and law enforcement, who he said had ‘essentially prevented a civil war’.
However Bertina, a researcher on Russian non-traditional security actors, is sceptical about the president’s attempts to shore up his power.
‘One of Russia’s most effective forces will now have to undergo some element of reconstitution and possible liquidation of its leadership, which will be expensive as you don’t build up an organisation like Wagner overnight,’ he said.
‘Putin can still say he’s in power but it’s not much to go on, with even people on the pro-war side viewing their president as pathetic and questioning if he can lead effectively.
‘While there is no longer any kinetic conflict, this is far from finished, there are still difficulties getting Wagnerites to subordinate to the Ministry of Defence, and there is a lot of uncertainty about what the actual deal struck between Prigozhin and the Kremlin was.
‘The external statements put out by the Kremlin cannot be taken as indicative of what the deals actually contain.’
The Kremlin has said that Wagner is handing over its heavy weapons to the conventional military, but questions remain over its lucrative sphere of operations in Africa and its fighters’ willingness to join regular units.
‘Some Wagner elements might, while other elements will find it very hard to do,’ Bertina said. ‘While another kinetic confrontation is hard to see, the Wagnerites going to the front will be meeting their force counterparts who will be viewing them with suspicion and there will be a tension and uneasy relationship that might have a significant impact on the battlefield.
‘They went to Wagner to get paid more and also because they were led by a command structure outside of the Ministry of Defence, and that’s been taken away from them.’
In an 11-minute audio address released yesterday, Prigozhin said no one had agreed to sign a contract with the defence ministry and his firm was due to cease existence on the contract deadline day.
He portrayed his decision to turn his heavily armed convoy around on the road to Moscow as a move to avoid ‘shedding Russian blood’, with his actions borne of anger directed at the defence ministry rather than being an attempt to overthrow the government.
Rory Stewart, an independent MP and former House of Commons Defence Committee chair, speculated that Prigozhin had acted first because his ‘back was against the wall’ after an apparent ‘bungled attempt’ by the FSB, the KGB’s successor, to abduct him.
Bertina said: ‘Prigozhin was quite willing to take risks, and they were dangerous risks, but I’m not sure he was as cornered as some would suggest. It’s difficult to be certain about, but who knows?’
On the battlefield, Ukrainian Airborne forces ‘highly likely’ recaptured one of the first areas of territory occupied by Russia since 2014, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. The ‘small advances’ were made eastwards from the village of Krasnohorivka in the Donetsk region, according to the intelligence update this morning.