The American magazine "Foreign Affairs" published a long report on the Wagner militia, the Russian private military company close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and questioned Putin's need for it, and gave many details about the hidden struggle between powers to preserve it.
The report's authors, Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, reviewed tensions that erupted earlier this month between the Russian Defense Ministry and the Wagner Group, to the extent that Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin publicly insulted Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, as well as the chief of the General Staff and commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, and threatened to withdraw his troops from Bachmut if he was not immediately provided with more ammunition.
Not strange to Russia
The report questioned why Putin tolerated Prigozhin's bizarre actions and where Wagner actually suited Russia's military and intelligence hierarchy, saying Wagner's rise to the forefront was the latest development in a long history of Russian and Soviet reliance on informal forces, citing as the successful example of former Russian President Joseph Stalin's use of private militias to support Republicans in the Spanish Civil War.
Putin's use of Wagner 8 years ago in the Ukrainian war is no stranger to Russia, and Wagner has become for him an important means of reining in the military, which he has long seen as a potential threat to his rule.
As Prigozhin became increasingly bold in his criticism of the military leadership, many observers began to wonder how long he could continue to do so. For now, he said, the Russian military's military intelligence, to which Wagner is officially subordinate, has maintained its support for the militia, believing it remains useful and that the military itself continues to support it. Heavily controlled Russian media, including so-called "Fuynkers" (Russian war correspondents linked to the military), have also been instructed to help promote Wagner and its activities in Ukraine. As a result, pro-Kremlin newspapers have so far continued to publish interviews with Wagner officers that glorify the group's fighting spirit.
Putin's support for Wagner explains what is going on
The most important factor for Wagner, however, is Putin himself. In fact, Prigozhin's repeated attacks on two senior military commanders seem out of line, explained only by Putin's personal support.
But why is Prigozhin valuable to Putin? They replied that the explanation lies in Putin's complex relationship with the Russian military. During his first years in power, one of Putin's biggest challenges was keeping the military under control. As one of the largest militaries in the world in a vast country where everything is done internally, the Russian military has a tradition of making sure the outside world knows very little about its activities. This means that the usual forms of government and public censorship – whether through parliament, law enforcement, or the media – simply do not take place in Russia.
Putin seeks to tighten his grip on the military
During his first decade in office, Putin sought to tighten his grip on the military by appointing former KGB general Sergei Ivanov as defense minister. But Putin was forced to replace him in 2007, when it became clear that Ivanov's efforts to launch greater military reform had failed. Later, with Shoigu, another stranger to the military, Putin again tried to gain more influence.
But now, more than a year into the war in Ukraine, there is no evidence that Putin has worked more with Shoigu than with Ivanov. Moreover, Putin understands that in wartime the military tends to gain more power within the state. He knows that the longer the war lasts, the greater this power will be, and it may be difficult for him to exert control. Since he tends to look at the world from a threat perspective, the military's relative strength is in some ways more of a concern than the military's performance on the battlefield.
Prigozhin publicly insulted Russia's defense minister, as well as the chief of the General Staff and commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, and threatened to withdraw his troops from Bachmut if he was not immediately provided with more ammunition (Reuters)
As a result, Putin has increasingly resorted to unconventional methods to rein in generals. Beginning in the last quarter of 2022, for example, the Funkers encouraged the spread of problems in the military, and Wagner played as a counterweight to the military.
Russia today is not Stalin's Russia
For Prigozhin, despite the extraordinary losses suffered by his soldiers, this was put in favor of both sides, the Wagner militia and Putin. Prigozhin understands that he will never pose a political threat to Putin, because he enjoys no other support within the Russian ruling elite except Putin's own patronage. Putin was careful to keep it that way.
What Prigozhin, and to a lesser extent Putin, does not understand is that today's Russia is not Stalin's Russia, and that many sectors of Russian society, particularly the country's bureaucracy, watch the adventures of the Wagner leader with horror and disgust. Currently, Wagner burns more ammunition than any other Russian unit, and if it turns out that this has not yielded tangible victories on the battlefield, this massive campaign that lasted months, killing thousands of lives and destroying vast amounts of war materiel, could appear to be a massive waste of scarce resources.
Whether Putin will see Wagner's failure, if it fails, as a capital offense is another matter, and noted that Putin has a long record of effectively employing failed bureaucrats and politicians, such as his use of former president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev.