There are two sources in the US administration who report on the matter, write The Washington Post. Prigozhin admitted earlier this year that he was the founder of the Wagner Group. It has played a critical role for the Russian military on the battlefield in Ukraine. He believes, according to American intelligence, that the Russian Ministry of Defense is far too dependent on his mercenaries in the Wagner group. This will be without giving them enough money and resources to be able to complete the mission, the sources further claim. Prigozhin admitted earlier this year that he had founded the Wagner group. Illustration: Scanpix/Illustration Tom Bob Peru Aronsen, news Prigozhin has for some time been open about his belief that President Vladimir Putin has mismanaged his offensive in Ukraine. For many years, his group has been considered Putin’s secret army. The sources believe that Prigozhin has posted a video on social media where Wagner soldiers complain that they lack food and provisions, in order to put pressure on the Kremlin to give the mercenary group more money. – That is the public position he has established politically: I am Yevgeny Prigozhin. I’m here to tell you the truth, and I’ll get the job done, one of them told the newspaper. The oligarch himself admitted to the newspaper that he had had some direct contact with Putin recently. This photo, sent out by the French military, is supposed to show three Russian members of the Wagner Group (right). Photo: AP – First of all, I did not communicate directly with Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin recently, he said, adding that he had no plans to do so in the foreseeable future either. – I did not criticize the management of the armed forces or the Russian Federation during the conflict in Ukraine. Therefore, I have nothing to comment on. The oligarch also said that he has not seen any video of Wagner forces complaining about a lack of food and resources. The Wagner Group promotes Putin’s interests in destabilizing the West and orchestrating a new Cold War. Who is actually behind the private shadow army? Ydstebø: – A joker in this game Lt. Col. Palle Ydstebø at the Defense Academy, believes that the Wagner group will be central to the Russian military in the future. – It is probably one of the few departments that has a professionalism and a quality that enables them to carry out offensives. For several weeks, they have been conducting offensives against the city of Bakhmut. – At the same time, it is not part of the Russian defense as such. After all, they are an independent department with a completely separate command line, and do not answer to the Russian defense command. In that sense, they are in many ways a joker in this game as well. Palle Ydstebø is a lieutenant colonel at the Norwegian Defense Academy. Photo: Mathias Moene Rød / Mathias Moene Rød There is speculation among professionals whether the owner of this private company has his own ambitions on behalf of himself more than on behalf of the state of Russia, he says. – As the regular Russian army has suffered such heavy losses and become so weakened, they have become a powerful factor in the war in Ukraine. We don’t know what they will come up with next, but they certainly won’t be able to assert themselves against the Ukrainian army. At the same time, he says that direct criticism from Prigozhin’s side could mean that one will start to see “an internal power struggle in Moscow”. – This could be an indicator that he is now starting to challenge some of the other actors in Moscow. Should offer guard services and mercenary missions Prigozhin has said that the Wagner group was created to send soldiers to the Donbas region in Ukraine in 2014. He has previously denied that he was involved, before he came forward about the foundation earlier this autumn. Then also confirm that the soldiers in the group have been active in Africa and Latin America. – I cleaned the old weapons myself, sorted the bulletproof vests myself and found specialists who could help me with this, he said then in a statement on the social network VKontakte. – From that moment, on 1 May 2014, a group of patriots was added, which was later named the Wagner Battalion. – Prigozhin has been seen as a loyal supporter of Putin for a very long time, says researcher Åse Gilje Østensen. Photo: ALEXEY DRUZHININ / AFP Private military companies are basically prohibited in Russia, and the Kremlin and the political leadership deny that they are involved. Wagner is said to have been started in collaboration between the Kremlin and the country’s military intelligence service, the GRU. At the start of the company, the idea was that the group would offer guard services and smaller mercenary missions. But gradually the task and the number of employees have grown. – Has lost a lot of people in Ukraine If it is true that Prigozhin has openly criticized the military tactics, this is sensational, believes researcher Åse Gilje Østensen at the Naval Academy in Bergen, which is part of the Norwegian Armed Forces’ university. – He seems to have been a loyal support player who jumps when Putin says jump, so to speak. Until no. It represents, as far as I see it, a shift. Østensen tells news that the Wagner group has lost many of its soldiers, especially on missions in Ukraine, but that the oligarch has still delivered when Putin has asked him to. Åse Gilje Østensen is a researcher at the Norwegian Naval Academy in Bergen. – Criticism of that warfare can have consequences for the position one has as a privileged support player for the regime. According to Østensen, the Wagner group has primarily been used to recruit and train new fighters for the battlefield in Ukraine. – With the war in Ukraine, the Wagner group got a new role. Now they were not just secret substitutes for ordinary Russian forces. Now they were also an instrument of Russian intimidation propaganda. At the beginning in Kyiv, the Wagner name itself was used as a deterrent among the Ukrainians, where it was insinuated that Wagner was among the actors who should have the political leadership, explains Østensen. A mural paying tribute to the Wagner group depicted in Belgrade, Serbia in September 2022. Photo: Darko Vojinovic / AP – As Russia took heavy losses, Wagner recruited much less critically than before. In addition, the authorities began the mystique surrounding Wagner and mercenaries for recruitment, she says further. – What Wagner may have been elsewhere until 2022, I doubt that they actually are now. Now the Wagner name is actually watered down to a very large extent. news has previously discussed how the group has recruited mercenaries from Syria for the war in Ukraine. Earlier this year, the human rights organization “Russia Behind the Walls” claimed that the group had recruited 3,000 soldiers from Russian prisons.
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The founder of the Wagner group is said to have confronted Putin with criticism about the war – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
