Russia sacrificing mercenary forces as ‘live meat’ after Wagner Group warlord loses ‘Putin’s trust’

The infamous Wagner Group has found itself in the crosshairs of not only the Ukrainian military but also Russia’s Defense Ministry after its mercenary chief lost the confidence of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, once Putin’s top aide, is fighting for the survival of his mercenary army in eastern Ukraine as the battle for Bakhmut continues after months of intense fighting.

Wagner expert Oleksandr Kovalenko told Fox News Digital, “After the battle for Soledar, Yevgeny Prigozhin lost Putin’s confidence.” “This is due to the fact that Soledor was occupied by Wagner [private military company] PMC at the cost of heavy losses.”

“Indeed, the PMC lost its main backbone at Soldier Wagner and the operation faced massive criticism within Russia,” he said.

Men in military uniforms, claiming to be soldiers of the Russian mercenary group known as the Wagner Group and its head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, pose for a photo at a salt mine in Soledar, Ukraine, in this handout photo In was released on January 10, 2023. (Handout via Ress service of “Concord” / Reuters)

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The battle for Soledar revealed the first significant rift that was reported between the mercenary group and the Russian army in January after the defense ministry claimed victory over the salt mining town just 10 miles north of Bakhmut.

Prigozhin rebutted this claim and accused the ministry of attempting to steal the group’s glory.

The ministry later issued a rare statement saying it was a joint effort, but the public spat revealed real divisions between Putin’s fighting forces.

Kovalenko, a military observer with the Information Resistance group in Ukraine, which began countering propaganda after Russia’s 2014 invasion, explained that the fact that Wagner forces had been fighting for the Donbass region since the summer months, such Circumstances were not what gave Prigozhin any kind of support.

“Since the summer of 2022, Prigozhin had a complete monopoly on the conduct of hostilities in the Bakhmut area,” explained the Wagner expert.

Ukrainian soldiers take shelter in a ditch during Russian shelling near Bakhmut, Ukraine, on March 5, 2023. (AP Photo / Libkos)

Kovalenko said that Prigozhin’s failures had not only cost him access to permissions and weapons provided through the Ministry of Defense, but had now cost his army as a “human shield” in the first line of defense for Russian military forces. is being used in

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According to a Wagner expert, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, along with Valery Gerasimov, General Staff of Russia’s Armed Services, used Wagner’s failures to take the Bakhmut sector to persuade Putin to return conventional military troops to the area.

Kovalenko’s portrayal of the changing battlefield in the Bakhmut sector was echoed in a Sunday report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which said Russia’s defense ministry was now “deliberately arming elite and guilty Wagner forces in Bakhmut”. Trying to spend both.” an attempt to undermine Prigozhin and derail his ambitions for greater influence in the Kremlin.”

Kovalenko said, “taking into account the fact that now Prigozhin could not quickly compensate for the loss of his units because he lost his monopoly on hiring prisoners in prisons, the number of mercenaries increased very quickly.” is decreasing from.

Yevgeny Prigozhin (Pool photo via Sergey Ilnitsky/AP/File)

Reports have been surfacing for months that Russian defense officials were looking to remove Prigozhin as Putin’s proxy adviser, and the mercenary chief has become increasingly frustrated and public with his complaints – even Shoigu and accused Gerasimov of failing to commit “treason” last month. Provide your men with enough weapons.

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“It is difficult to say whether this was a planned destruction of the Wagner PMC, but it is a fact [is] The Russian military command uses Wagnerites as living meat, Kovalenko said.

“Prigozhin is currently unable to do anything,” he said. “He has no way of resisting.”

A Ukrainian tank fires at Russian positions near Bakhmut, Ukraine, March 8, 2023. (AP Photo / Evgeny Maloletka)

According to the ISW, Prigozhin has threatened to withdraw his Wagner forces from Bakhmut, but it is unclear how this will work or what it might mean for Prigozhin.

The Washington-based think tank said it appears that the Russian Defense Ministry is currently “prioritizing the elimination” of Wagner forces from the battlefield in Bakhmut, which it said is “slowing the rate of advance in the area”. “

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, eliminating the Wagner mercenaries would mean an even higher casualty rate among Russian military forces, which have already seen a significant death toll in the Bakhmut region – including more than 1,000 deaths in the past week. Are included.

A man places flowers during the funeral of Dmitri Menshikov, a Wagner Group mercenary who was killed during the military conflict in Ukraine, at the Alley of Heroes at a cemetery in Saint Petersburg, Russia December 24, 2022. (Reuters / Igor Rusak)

Western defense officials have repeatedly said that Russia has expelled disproportionate amounts of weapons and men into the region for little strategic gain – suggesting the battle for Bakhmut has become largely symbolic in Moscow’s eyes.

But according to Kovalenko, Russia can still afford to divert Wagner troops from its war effort.

“PMC Wagner is not the only private military company operating in Russia. Now PMC Patriot and PMC Redut – supervised by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation – are gradually gaining popularity,” he said.

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Yevgeny Prigozhin, left, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Alexei Druzhinin/Pool Photo via AP/File)

Kovalenko explained that Russian officials have tried to expand the use of Moscow’s mercenaries by diversifying into groups in places such as Syria, but Prigozhin’s monopoly stood in their way at first.

“Now the Russian military has an opportunity to use its PMCs and advertise to Putin,” he said, adding that Russia’s use of conscription would also enable it to send men to the front lines in Ukraine.