Back in February, I wrote about the increasing, uh, unruliness of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the boss of the Wagner Group, a “private military company” which, prior to the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin had mainly used to carry out missions abroad from which it wanted to preserve an ill-defined distance. In Ukraine, however Wagner’s recruits, quite a few of whom have been drawn from Russian’s prisons, have been openly fighting alongside the Russian army.
By February, Prigozhin was already highly critical of the way that the war was being fought, but his complaints were directed at some of those at the top of the Russian army. Now, he appears to be coming very close to attacking Putin.
In recent days, Mr. Prigozhin has recorded graphic and expletive-laden videos accusing Russia’s senior generals of denying his forces necessary supplies, such as ammunition. On Tuesday, he appeared to take his attacks even further, publishing a video that some observers interpreted as a direct criticism of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Ukrainian weapons “kill our soldiers, while a happy grandpa thinks that everything is going well for him,” Mr. Prigozhin said in the video. Mr. Putin’s opponents commonly refer to him as “grandfather.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Prigozhin said that “grandpa” referred to a senior Russian military official whose name he did not specify. Mr. Prigozhin, a tycoon who earned his fortune in part through Kremlin catering contracts, has been careful to avoid direct criticism of Mr. Putin.
Prighozin, who is no fool, will have known how his reference to a “grandpa” would have been interpreted, possibly (of course this can only be guesswork) suggesting that he is either testing how far he can go (but to what end?), or perhaps sending an even blunter message to Putin of trouble to come if he doesn’t secure Wagner the resources that Prigozhin says it needs.
And now, mysteriously, a story has been floated that Prigozhin has attempted a side-deal with Ukraine.
In late January, with his mercenary forces dying by the thousands in a fight for the ruined city of Bakhmut, Wagner Group owner Yevgeniy Prigozhin made Ukraine an extraordinary offer.
Prigozhin said that if Ukraine’s commanders withdrew their soldiers from the area around Bakhmut, he would give Kyiv information on Russian troop positions, which Ukraine could use to attack them. Prigozhin conveyed the proposal to his contacts in Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, with whom he has maintained secret communications during the course of the war, according to previously unreported U.S. intelligence documents leaked on the group-chat platform Discord.
Prigozhin has publicly feuded with Russian military commanders, who he furiously claims have failed to equip and resupply his forces, which have provided vital support to Moscow’s war effort. But he is also an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who might well regard Prigozhin’s offer to trade the lives of Wagner fighters for Russian soldiers as a treasonous betrayal.
Indeed they might.
Even without that, eyebrows might also be raised by the claim that Prigozhin has been maintaining contacts with Ukraine’s military intelligence. The Post’s writers take this relatively lightly:
In wartime, it is not unusual for opposing parties to maintain some form of communication. And the documents don’t reveal Prigozhin’s intention in talking to his erstwhile foes in Ukraine. In an interview, a Ukrainian official characterized the contacts in the spirit of “keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.
Maybe.
But the timing of the leak is interesting, as is this:
The documents also suggest that Kyiv suspects, or may know, that the Kremlin is aware of Prigozhin’s communications with Ukrainian intelligence [HUR], if not his secret negotiations over Bakhmut.
One document, based on “sigint” — or intercepted communications — states that Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, “expected the Russians to use details of Prigozhin’s secret talks with the HUR and his meetings with their officers in Africa to make him appear to be a Ukrainian agent.” It doesn’t specify whether Budanov suspects Moscow may already know that Prigozhin is talking to HUR officers.
That raises the interesting possibility that some in Moscow were keeping their knowledge of Prigozhin’s dealings with the HUR to themselves as, potentially, the basis (it’s always useful to have such pieces of information in reserve) of an accusation of treason. Prigozhin himself has suggested that the leak was the work of “some comrades from Rublyovka,” shorthand for members of the Russian elite. (Rublyovka is the unofficial name for a prestigious area in the Moscow suburbs.)
Meanwhile, while the Kremlin has dismissed the whole story as a hoax, Prigozhin seems ready to brazen it out:
When informed that U.S. intelligence documents revealed Prigozhin’s communications with Ukrainian intelligence, the mercenary commander appeared to make light of the situation. “Yes of course I can confirm this information, we have nothing to hide from the foreign special services. Budanov and I are still in Africa,” Prigozhin wrote on Sunday via his Telegram channel.
But:
In a subsequent, rambling audio file released Monday, Prigozhin didn’t directly respond to a question about his offer to disclose Russian troop positions in exchange for a Ukrainian pullback in Bakhmut.
That might have been a step too far. The Ukrainians, meanwhile, were reported to have distrusted Prigozhin too much to have acted on his (supposed) offer.
Meanwhile, a lieutenant-general, Victor Sobolev, who also sits in the Duma, has been saying that the Wagner Group is illegal, and that the Russian defense ministry should be in sole charge of operations in Ukraine. That Sobolev has felt the need to say this (presumably with the approval of others in the army) is, it seems reasonable to guess, more evidence of growing unease about Prigozhin within sections of the hierarchy in Moscow.
Writing in The Spectator, Mark Galeotti describes Prigozhin’s behavior as an extreme example of the behavior that Putin has encouraged to keep himself in power:
This is an example of the way that Putin’s style of managing the elite has proven dangerously dysfunctional when transplanted to the battlefield. A culture of mutual suspicion, cannibalistic competition and opportunistic self-interest has kept Putin in power for more than two decades. It has allowed him to play individuals and interests against each other and forced the members of his court constantly to seek his ear and favour. In war, though, the need is for unity, discipline and mutual support — something the Ukrainians are displaying and the Russians clearly lack.
That’s possible, and so, interestingly, is this:
For all his macho public persona, Putin is not a man who takes difficult decisions easily or quickly, and he is clearly uncomfortable with any major reshuffles at the top of his security structures. He may be tempted to try and ignore these revelations in the name of not disrupting Wagner at a time when it is still at the forefront of the battle for Bakhmut and with the Ukrainian counter-offensive looming, or simply give Prigozhin a symbolic slap on the wrists.
If he does that, though, he will show himself as weak. At a time when so many within the elite are wondering for all kinds of reasons whether Putin is still the man Russia needs, any such missteps make it more likely that when he is faced with some true systemic crisis, they will decide he neither deserves their support, nor is dangerous enough to compel it.
Prigozhin should probably steer clear of any open windows for now.