What Is Wagner's Game?
Didn't come to army's aid in Liman, attacked its general, now building a fortification line behind it
Even with mobilization in full swing Prigozhin continues to recruit for Wagner in prisons. So yeah, the Russian state continues to pardon criminals for the benefit of a private corporation. Talk about Neoliberalism. And you thought your public-private partnership in garbage collection was bad enough.
If I told you 10 years ago that Russia would be freeing convicts so that they can become Merc Corp employees, so that Russia can pay their mercenary company for their services, you would have told me I belong in a lunatic asylum. Yet here we are.
In other Wagner adventures, the state-backed corporation has started building a defensive line in Lugansk, popularly deemed the “Prigozhin line”.
What’s funny about this line however, is that instead of building it along the actually existing front line, Wagner is mostly building it along the old 2014-2022 contact line, deep inside Russian-held territory.
Why not build it where the actual fighting is? If you’re constructing defences in Lugansk, why build them behind Svatovo where they may never become useful, instead of in front of Svatovo where they would have immediate utility?
Of course, putting them in front of Svatovo would have the effect of aiding the regular Russian military that is currently fending of Ukrainian attempts there. And helping out its competition may very well not be in Wagner’s factional interest.
Recall that Prigozhin took advantage of the Russian retreat from Liman to attack General Lapin (by echoing Kadyrov) in what was widely understood by Russian military bloggers to be a veiled attack on Shoigu and the Russian Ministry of Defense.
What’s interesting is that the outnumbered Russian army defenders at Liman actually did a good job of delaying the Ukrainians for three weeks. With a few reinforcements more, they might have been able to repulse them entirely. Why didn’t Wagner which has had men enough for continuous (if ineffective) offensive action against nearby Bakhmut reinforce the army at Liman?
Couple this with circumstantial evidence that Wagner was helping to magnify mobiki complaints against the military (1,2,3) and it’s a very murky picture. Does Wagner’s contribution to the war outweigh its inherent interest in hollowing out the Russian military and state? And how does one calculate how much bang for buck is Russia getting out of Wagner anyway? As a private corporation, it is much more media savvy than the legacy, bureaucratic military, but what is the real cost of a Wagner battalion to the Russian budget?
For three months Wagner has successfully advertised even the most minuscule gains it has been making on Bakhmut outskirts. It has provided for a nice contrast useful to the image of the company. While the Russians everywhere else were losing ground, only Wagner has been making gains, no matter how actually minuscule. However in the big picture that also means that for three months Wagner has been constantly attacking without actually getting anywhere. Has Wagner’s private little Bakhmut war, seemingly disconnected from Russian fortunes elsewhere, been a good use of resources? How much has taking a few hundred meters weekly cost the Russian taxpayer?
Ukraine’s oligarchs like Kolomoisky in 2014 equipped and sent out private armies to Donbass. This was bad enough. But at least this was the oligarchs’ voluntary contribution to the war that the Ukrainian taxpayer wasn’t on the hook for. Prigozhin meanwhile is on the one hand using Wagner to promote his patriotic credentials and raise his profile, yet on the other hand, is also sending a bill for services rendered to be paid out to his company. The Russian budget is at once financing his public profile, his private fortune, and his private military.
Nobody stands to benefit more from the war and more directly than he. Already the Russian taxpayer through no choice of his own has been made to nourish him on his bosom. At the very least he stands to make himself much richer, and if dice falls the right way he’ll be hoping to pose as Putin’s indispensable man and then his successor. (And if he has a competitor, well, he’ll be the only one with a private military.)
Funny how in 2022 one can be a mercenary captain, the literal picture of a war profiteer hiring out cash-motivated technicians of war killing in murky, non-transparent bargains yet somehow be confused for a patriot and even a “hero”. There was a time when mercenaries were common, but in those days nobody would have confused them for anything other than businessmen and rent-seekers. (And putschists if you’re not careful.)
Don't forget that with the exception of Kherson, there was nowhere where the russian army was building fortifications and long minefields. They had lots of time and they did nothing. They left open terrain everywhere. They also did nothing on the russian borders.
This is incompetence. I guess they thought Russia would be always on the offensive, and Ukraine wouldn't dare to attack the border regions.
The lack of border territorial battalions is incompetence too. They will certainly help to redeploy russian units from the border to Ukraine.
On the contrary, Ukraine did a great job fortifying defences everywhere. This was the right thing to do.
Wagner is right to highlight the incompetence of the russian military with that PR wall stuff. Even though they do it due to their competition with the military.
But the lack of defensive lines, fortifications and minefields lays straight on Defence Ministry and the General Staff, and not on Putin. Even though Putin is responsible for other mishaps.
Interesting... a single ditch as a defensive line. That must be a joke in practical terms.
Are we all part of a movie?