Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Group, is preparing to scale back his own army's operations in Ukraine after Russian military commanders successfully cut off key supplies of men and ammunition, Bloomberg reported.
Prigozhin, seen by the Russian security and political establishment as a growing threat, suffers from shortages of manpower and ammunition in Ukraine after being barred from recruiting prison inmates, his main source of recruitment, and deprived of supplies.
It said Wagner's forces had so far failed to capture their main target, the Ukrainian city of Pakhmut, despite months of attempts and heavy losses. Now, according to informed sources, Prigozhin plans to shift his focus back to countries in Africa.
Bloomberg reported that Wagner on Monday published a recruitment notice showing deployments in African countries between 9 and 14 months.
She quoted people close to the Kremlin and intelligence services, who spoke to her on condition of anonymity to discuss matters privately, that while Prigozhin's fighters were struggling to advance more than a few dozen kilometers in and around Pakhmot despite months of fighting, senior Russian commanders managed to sow suspicion in Putin about Wagner's military prowess, arguing that the results came from the use of large numbers of prisoners sent to their deaths.
This eventually led the Russian president to intervene to transfer the recruitment of prisoners to the Defense Ministry, cutting off the flow of recruits to Wagner.
Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said, "Prigozhin has become very independent, which violates the balance between elite clans." "Only Putin can decide what the limits are."