Part Two

Note how he cannot distinguish between “paid mercenaries” and those recruited out of Russian jails. To him, they are the same. Nor can he acknowledge the other specialists that Wagner employed all along; to him, it’s all “such a rabble.” But in reality, there are (1) soldiers for hire, ex-military who do it for a living, AND (2) people Wagner liberated from jail to pad his army on the ground, as well as (3) highly-skilled specialists helping to run it all at the top. While it is certainly possible that a small number of those Prigozhin sprang from jail are also ex-military, it is certainly not the whole, or even a majority, and none who will mourn Prigozhin enough to throw themselves at Putin in some demented individual kamikaze move. The author even uses the redundant phrase “paid mercenary,” as though he doesn’t understand that the very definition of a mercenary is a soldier who is paid to be one.

But then he takes his ignorance further and adds, “How ironic it would be if somebody showered them with riches to go and create mayhem within Russia.” Paying Wagner forces “to go and create mayhem within Russia” is not just ironic, it would be a miracle, since the agreement between Putin and Prigozhin in June involved the vast majority of Wagner forces leaving Ukraine. There may be some stragglers, but there is no single Wagner force anymore. Some went to Belarus, many others went to Africa, and over the last two months between the march and Prigozhin’s death, more still have been absorbed into the Russian army. This author’s statement assumes that there is still a single unified Wagner force left in Eastern Europe, that will also turn on Putin if only an angel investor can be found to fund the operation.

But in reality, it cannot. There is no unified Wagner force in Eastern Europe anymore, no matter how much cash is offered, and within Russia there are no Prigozhins left amongst the oligarchs. There are plenty of non-Russians who would “shower them with riches” (the author’s words) but there simply is no more “them” to shower, lol.

One of the things brought up in the BBC article I linked was how Prigozhin was footing a large portion of Wagner’s bill, and how Putin’s challenge now is not finding someone to lead Wagner, but to lead AND fund it as Prigozhin was doing. Yes, Wagner was an arm of the Russian state, but it was not being paid for out of Russian coffers. Only the equipment, and especially the ammo. (Don’t forget the ammo, because it’s a big part of why Prigozhin marched.)

Putin and Prigozhin started off as friends. Prigozhin was an oligarch because Putin made him one. Prigozhin was on Putin’s side, and worked with Putin to create Wagner out of his own oligarch share of stolen Russian spoils. They were friends and partners in crime – literally! – for thirty years, to the point that after Putin killed him, Putin eulogized him. Putin does not usually eulogize his enemies, lol. But this author seem to be completely unaware of why Prighozin – friend of Putin and co-creator/funder of Wagner – marched on Moscow in June, as though none of that previous friendship, camaraderie, and cooperation at every level ever existed between them.

It’s because Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s actual defense minister, Prigozhin’s counterpart as head of the actual Russian army, was getting Wagner forces killed by refusing to release any of the ammunition to Wagner that Prigozhin had been promised and his troops desperately needed. The way Prigozhin saw it, the level of sheer incompetence Shoigu was enforcing in his own army, and forcing on Wagner through withholding ammo and needed equipment, was the equivalent of simply handing back Crimea and Donbass to Ukraine while continuing to pour the blood of his men over it anyway, and Prigozhin said as much publicly. Prigozhin fought for better supplies and better strategy/planning for months, but instead of helping or even trying to win on the battlefield, Putin used Prigozhin’s battlefront problems to play him politically against Shoigu instead of taking his own war seriously.

For a commander who actually cares about both country and his own men, this was untenable. Hence Prigozhin’s march.

If you look at Prigozhin’s march on Moscow as an elaborate act of suicide, as I do, you might be able to see it as a layered strategy. By marching on Moscow but stopping short of it, Prigozhin gets to escape being the executioner of his own men, gets his troops out of Ukraine by default because now they cannot be trusted as a group by any side, gets out of having to beg for supplies and being pitted politically against a bloody and murderously stupid fool like Shoigu with his men as the stakes, and evades the ultimate fate of having to lead even more forces into a war already lost, all while drawing the world’s direct attention to the great lie underneath all of it: the myth of the all-powerful, benevolent dictator for life. It was masterful, and it got Wagner troops out of Ukraine, even if it cost Prigozhin his own life.

So now, because of June’s march, Putin is revealed as too weak to even stop his own forces at the border. Putin is left with a damn near useless Shoigu as defense minister, and without Prigozhin, Wagner, or even an available and willing Russian oligarch to fund such a force. What they built together as a team is now largely dismantled in Eastern Europe, and won’t be easily put together again, even if it is somehow possible. And Prigozhin is well out of it, no longer trapped or being played as a cat’s paw for Putin’s political entertainment while his men die for lack of ammo in a war that was never going to be won because its commander-in-chief is a deluded megalomaniac.

Did you know that Prigozhin spent time in jail for robbery himself? He was not one who was willing to be trapped. And in the end, he not only freed himself but shot Putin in the foot on his way out. Yes, he knew he was going to die. But he made damn sure it wasn’t for nothing.

To me, that’s the story behind the march and Wagner’s ending that this author could have been writing about, had he known anything but superficial appearance and his own fevered imaginations of a happy ending. Everything Russian is many layered, lol. I know you think this article is grand and this British author is all that plus a shot of vodka, but to me it just reads like a comic book, and not a very good one.

Prigozhin was capable of providing for Wagner through his affairs in Africa and through the money he got from the Kremlin, will Putin be able to substitute such an income? What will happen if not? I’ve got my answers but they are just hypotheticals, who will live will see.

Hypotheticals are not bad when they are well informed. I would be interested in hearing it.

Sorry for the lengthy writing, I was writing it in bits because I kept getting interrupted, lol. Hope it makes sense, and thanks for reading.

Part One

Sorry this is so long. I separated it into two parts for posting.

I’ve thought about it and I really can’t see who can pay Wagner’s operators salaries, let alone arming them according to their standards (much better than the Russian army ones, can we agree on that?).

As far as I know Russia pays its soldiers 300-400€ a month and Wagner mercenaries are paid circa 2k (those who are not serving instead of being in a cell). Prigozhin was capable of providing for Wagner through his affairs in Africa and through the money he got from the Kremlin, will Putin be able to substitute such an income? What will happen if not? I’ve got my answers but they are just hypotheticals, who will live will see.

I would agree with all of this. What you asked, specifically, was, “But if Prigozhin was paying their fees and keeping them in check with his control structure how could they have been available to change their masters?”

There are multiple assumptions in that question, and the simple answer is that no military organization is one single unified group, especially Wagner. And that is the biggest mistake that author was making, IMO. But feel free to disagree.

My belief is that to pull off a successful coup – which is what killing Putin would be – you have to have more than a single shooter, even if a single shooter is the one doing the deed. Leaving aside the bigger issue of who will fill the vacuum of power when Putin is dead, for the assassin of a world leader there has to be some level of ideological motive as well as high pay, plus the level of skill that act would necessarily demand. In other words, it has to be someone who wants to do it, as well as being an insider who can bypass all the layers of security.

Putin famously defends against all of these, making it a high barrier for anyone, and something that would be highly unlikely for anyone under Prigozhin. Remember that Prigozhin counted Putin as a friend for thirty years, he supported the war not just with words but with rubles, and he did not want Putin dead or even deposed. And that, to me, is the biggest factor in preventing this: the lack of ideological motivation not just in those directly loyal to Prigozhin, but in all of Wagner.

Prigozhin was paying their costs, as Putin’s oligarch who was expected to do so, but that doesn’t mean that Wagner under Prigozhin was anything like an ideologically unified force. Wagner was (and is, as far as I know) a ragtag collection of ex-prisoners, then soldiers for hire (mercenaries), and at the top highly paid security specialists like Utkin and the other Wagner personnel on the downed plane. That’s roughly three disparate groups within Wagner, definitely some overlap but not one unified force, and they each have their own motivators and reasons for whatever they do.

Of those three groups, only the lowest ranks are stuck “in check with his control structure,” to use your phrase. They would hate Prigozhin as much as Putin, but still worked for Prigozhin either to stay out of prison or because it’s at least better than being a Russian conscript. But these would never have the skill level or individual desire to make a move. An ex-prisoner or basic soldier with no special training being sent on a mission to kill Putin? Not believable, even if he hates Putin. He’s there for the pay, or to stay out of jail, and if Prigozhin or Putin (or both) were on fire in a ditch he wouldn’t waste piss on either. That’s why it’s just not believable to assert that the lowest ranks are going to be ideologically driven, and thus self-motivated to “change masters” on that basis alone, even if they had the freedom. Of all Wagner’s troops, these are the most trapped.

And there’s something else to consider. Morally, Prigozhin was as much of a gutter rat as Putin, another fat oligarch feeding at the trough of Russia’s stolen wealth, but as it turns out, he was actually a pretty good battlefield commander and leader of men. And good commanders tend to earn the respect of their men, even the lowest. But that does NOT equate to any of them loving him enough as a group that they would avenge his death en masse, which is pretty much what this article alleges, even the headline.

That leaves the soldiers for hire, plus the more highly-paid, highly skilled security specialists at the top, two more groups that are in Wagner but out of choice, to pull off an assassination of Putin. But they never did, even though there are countless people in the world who would have paid to have Putin killed, and will even now. And these higher-level Wagner operatives are in demand and could have left at any time, but never did. So it seems pretty clear that it was never a situation of higher-level operatives in Wagner not killing Putin because they were being “held in check,” or unable to leave or without other options; they are simply choosing not to do so.

The author of the article takes none of this into account. He thinks of Wagner forces as a conglomerate, one entity with unified thinking and will, now suddenly filled with a desire for revenge. Read again what he says. It’s wishful thinking, with absolutely no recognition of the stratification of motive and ability found in any military organization, including Wagner:

Secondly, the Wagner Group might have lost their ‘cowboy’ leader and his deputy, but they remain a large force of thugs and murderers. Prigozhin was no military commander, but the Wagner Group is the most successful military outfit that Russia has managed to put into the field, no matter that they are paid mercenaries, many of them recruited out of Russian jails. To control such a rabble, you need some very hard ‘lieutenants’ running the show and these men will now be considering the future in Belarus and Africa. How ironic it would be if somebody showered them with riches to go and create mayhem within Russia. My experience of mercenaries is that they are not too picky about whose money they take. (emphasis mine)

Part Two follows . . .