Moscow wants to tie its mercenaries short, but it will not be easy. Wagner has announced that he will not sign any contract of subordination with the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu. The Defense Department confirmed on Saturday that it had ordered all “volunteer detachments” to sign contracts with its Ministry by the end of the month.
The defense minister argued that the move would increase the effectiveness of the Russian military. The head of the country’s main mercenary group, Evgeny Prigozhin, assures that Wagner is completely subservient to Russia’s interests, but that his command structure would be disrupted if they have to report to military commanders. Some Russian media believe the project is an attempt by Shoigu to keep Wagner, who has been known for his criticism of the military leadership, at bay.
“Shoigu cannot adequately manage military formations,” Prigozhin denounced this time to explain his refusal to collaborate. The mercenary leader added that Wagner has been coordinating his actions in Ukraine with General Sergei Surovikin, one of the commanders with whom he maintains a good relationship. Prigozhin fears that the Ministry may use failure to comply with the order as a reason to deprive Wagner of supplies. “When the thunder breaks, they will come running and bring weapons and ammunition asking for help,” he predicted.
The term to sign the contract with the Ministry of Defense ends on July 1. Although Prigozhin’s men have gained importance in the war in Ukraine, the Russian government has avoided giving legal status to a controversial formation such as Wagner, which ministers avoid calling by his name. Wagner is commonly referred to as “volunteer raiding parties”. While the government announcement on Saturday made no direct reference to Wagner or any other paramilitary group, Russian media suggested the new contracts were a move to rein in Prigozhin and his forces. True to his usual ambiguous language regarding mercenaries, Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov argued that these measures “will increase the combat capabilities and effectiveness of the armed forces and their volunteer detachments.”
For Moscow, Wagner has been an important piece in enclaves such as Bakhmut, where more than 60,000 fighters have been killed or injured in advancing Russian forces since May 2022. According to a UK Ministry of Defense report, Russian forces They advanced about 29 kilometers in the direction of Bakhmut. “This corresponds to 48 centimeters for every soldier killed or wounded.” At the end of May, after the capture of Bakhmut, Wagner’s fighters left the city, giving way to regular troops.
Defense now wants Wagner members to move on to individual defense ministry contracts. It also intends to put order in the cataloging of combatants. For example, in Donetsk the “mobilized” are still listed as “volunteers”, although they often ended up in the army as a result of street raids that take men by force.
The pulse between the head of the mercenaries and the Defense leadership goes back a long way. During the war Prigozhin has repeatedly publicly criticized the Russian Defense Ministry and the head of the department, Sergei Shoigu, accusing him of refusing to deliver the ammunition necessary for the advance. Ammunition and material are the weak point of Wagner’s autonomy, which depends on Defense when it comes to gathering resources. In December, the United States estimated that Wagner had around 50,000 troops fighting in the Ukraine.
Long-standing tensions between the Wagner Group and the military have escalated in recent weeks. Last week, the group kidnapped a senior frontline army commander, Lt. Col. Roman Venevitin, after accusing him of opening fire on a Wagner vehicle near Bakhmut. Lt. Col. Venevitin was later released and, in a video shared by Russian military bloggers, he accused the group of stoking “lawlessness” on the front lines. In the past Prigozhin has even accused the Russian army of firing on his fighters.
Prigozhin called the comments, which appeared to have been read from a script, “nonsense”. He also suggested that he is ready to deploy his troops on Russian soil to fight the forces that have broken through from the Ukrainian side in the Belgorod region.
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