Russia-Ukraine Flash Report 09 FEB 2023 14:00 PST - Prigozhin and Wagner has Peaked (Patreon)

Days after a suspected hit on one of his closest Lieutenants, one of the many faux publications Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner Group runs as part of its "marketing" arm asked the question, "Dear Evgeny Viktorovich, a large number of prisoners apply to our editorial office. They write that for more than a month, there has been no recruitment from correctional facilities in the Wagner PMC. And you no longer come to the colonies. Is it so?"

How did he respond?

"Yes, indeed, it is so. The recruitment of prisoners in PMC "Wagner" is completely stopped. All obligations are being fulfilled to those who work for us now."

For months, we have followed the war of words between the Kremlin in Moscow and PMC Wagner in St. Petersburg. Prigozhin's Wagner Group mercenaries had developed a reputation as an effective fighting force in the war's opening months. They assisted in the capture of Izyum, were heavily involved in a southern push toward Slovyansk, and were the primary force advancing from Svitlodarsk and Luhanske toward Bakhmut.

They made solid progress south of Izyum until mid-June when the tide started to turn. Out of Svitlodarsk, Wagner would go from being blocked for weeks to lurching forward 2 or 3 kilometers at a time. After the fall of Lysychansk and the capture of the Luhansk oblast, Russian General Lapin would never get another victory. The LNR, DNR, Chechen Akhmat, and a cluster of Syrian and other national volunteer units were combat destroyed. Six months later, Akhmat and the 1st and 2nd Army Corps have not been restored to combat effective forces. As the realization of the combat losses rippled across Russia, not through state media but through VK and Telegram posts, funeral announcements, and names etched in stone, frustration grew. Meanwhile, PMC Wagner was inching, meter by meter, closer to Soledar and Bakhmut. Prigozhin turned his marketing machine against the Kremlin.

Prigozhin is a better marketer than a mercenary. His direct efforts and from companies that have hired him meddled with Ukrainian, French, German, and UK elections. His troll farms inflamed rage in the United States in 2020 during Black Lives Matter protests, creating fake groups that catered to the far right and left, creating conflicts on the Internet and the streets through social media influence. History will remember him as a mercenary leader and monster, while his real achievements are in marketing and disinformation.

Riding a wave of military successes, and with the Russian military bogged down, Prigozhin increased his marketing of Wagner as a more effective fighting machine. Russian President Vladimir Putin opened Russian penal colonies up to Prigozhin in June, allowing his former caterer to recruit 1,000 convicts. While Wagner reported tremendous success with the new penal unit, and gains were being made east of Soledar and Bakhmut, the over 90% casualty rate was swept under the rug. The penal units became the new recruiting source. Then, Izyum and 95% of occupied Kharkiv fell in eight days. Less than 30 days after that, Lyman fell, and Ukraine was tickling the settlements just outside of Lysychansk. In a stroke of luck for Prigozhin, just as Wagner's reputation as being more effective than the Russian military was peaking, the Russian military collapsed. While Russian troops chaotically retreated across the Oskil River, Wagner had reached Soledar and Bakhmut with the blood of thousands of penal mercenaries.

It was at that moment that the somewhat reclusive Prigozhin became very public. He actively campaigned against Russian General Lapin, a favorite of Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu. Colonel General Ramzan Kadyrov joined in the attacks against Lapin, unfairly labeling the only military leader to provide Russia with one of two major victories of the war a coward. Lapin was relieved of duty, and the Prigozhin-friendly General Surovikin was named the commander of Russian forces in Ukraine.

Priogzhin denied political ambitions but was increasingly talking like a politician. With Russia struggling to hold on to Kherson and partial mobilization a disaster, he turned up his attacks on the Kremlin, skating on the line of criticizing Putin. Our analysts saw a significant threat growing. Prigozhin was becoming a populist and developing a cult of personality, with a 50,000-man army better equipped and trained than many units of the Russian military. He not only had heavy weapons at his disposal, such as armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, and tanks but has air defense systems and his own air force. With his popularity growing and a chorus of Russian milbloggers openly calling for less Kremlin and more Wagner, what happens if he turned his marketing and military arm towards the Kremlin?

The Kremlin could see it.

As part of the September 21 mobilization decree, Russian appointed a new head of prisons and changed the laws on criminals serving in the Russian Federation Armed Forces. Being in prison and having a past criminal record was no longer a barrier to military service. The head of prisons was permitted to recruit for the Russian military and alternative PMCs. Sergei Shoigu created his own PMC, Patriot, recruiting from the same prisons. Wagner now faced - competition.

Wagner also faced another problem. The word spread among the penal colonies of the reality of being penal mercenaries. Violent extra-judicial execution. Blocking troops preventing retreat. Wave attacks into deep Ukrainian defenses where the only options were death or victory. Within Ukraine, their status was at the absolute bottom, abused, assaulted, and sexual violence not just by Wagner but Russian troops and Akhmat. The last recruiting effort by PMC Wagner was a failure, drawing at most 1,000 new recruits.

Shoigu had enough, and the Kremlin set a trap. Wagner attempted another push on Bakhmut and Soledar in December, which ended almost identically to the September and November pushes. Ukrainian forces were pushed back to the sparkling wine factory, fighting for their lives in the forest plantation northeast of the city and near the garbage dump. Wagner forces complained openly about a lack of artillery support, calls for fire missions being ignored, and no close air support. More Russian troops were introduced, and the culmination point turned into an operational pause. The beginning of the end for Wagner had arrived.

Wagner attacked Yampolivka and Soledar with everything it had in three weeks of some of the war's most intense fighting. Estimates put Wagner's losses at 30,000, mostly penal units; in the end, Ukraine retreated. There weren't pictures of the Russian flag flying over Soledar because there was nowhere to erect one. The town, once home to 10,000 people, looked like it had been hit by a nuclear bomb.

Like Akhmat, the LNR, the DNR, Syrians, South Ossetians, and volunteer units like the 3rd Army Corps that survived for two weeks, PMC Wagner was teetering on being combat destroyed. In the pawns and kings structure, with penal mercenaries as pawns and professional mercenaries as kings, the professionals found themselves thrust to the front lines. In the information space, Wagner's victories were dismissed by the Kremlin and taken away over the month.

At the same time, the State Duma warned of "turbo patriots," declaring the biggest threat to the Russian government was no longer liberals and communists but the "turbo patriots" who don't believe the Kremlin is fighting an effective war. Men who called Shoigu a thief and have -- presidential -- ambitions.

In his final recruiting drives in Russian penal colonies, Prigozhin used fear as a motivator. The Russian Ministry of Defense was promising better treatment in their convict units, with Prigozhin predicting that service is voluntary for now, but one day it won't be, and they will come for "all of you."

It was apparent by the fall that Prigozhin was becoming a threat to Moscow, and Moscow could see it. Icarus flew too close to the sun, and his wings of ambition have been melted.

What's the next move? Private Military Companies like Wagner are illegal in Russia, and the Duma ignored a push to change that. The Kremlin's marketing machine hasn't named Prigozhin an enemy of the state, but the "turbo patriot" rhetoric is laying a foundation. But the undoing of Prigozhin will almost certainly not come from an assassin's bullet or some special tea. As early as August, there were accusations within Russia of corruption by the Wagner Group. There were reports that Wagner would resurrect dead mercenaries on paper and charge the Kremlin a second time - up to $100,000 for a six-month contract for a person that no longer existed.

Wagner is still fighting in the Bakhmut Operational Area. To the north, their forces are combined with Russian, LNR, and DNR forces, but to the south, they continue to lead the fight, absent of most penal units now. They are mostly destroyed. The days of Wagner Group as a leading fighting force are over, and Prigozhin is far more active in Ukraine now as he fights efforts to dim his star.

Always the marketer, the latest effort is to find new business and recruits in the Middle East by attempting to rewrite 2018 Syrian history. In a series of long posts across his marketing empire, Wagner is framing the defeat of up to 500 of his mercenaries against a 40-person elite US military unit as a victory and further demonstration that they remain as effective as ever.