Advertisement
Supported by
A force led by President Vladimir Putin’s former bodyguard will recruit veterans of the paramilitary forces, who mutinied against Russian army leaders and saw their leader killed in a plane crash.
By Anatoly Kurmanaev, Ekaterina Bodyagina and Alina Lobzina
Russia’s armed forces are stepping up efforts to recruit veterans of the Wagner paramilitary group, according to veterans and army bloggers, as the Kremlin attempts a new wave of mobilization and salvage some of the force’s fighting potential following its leader’s mutiny. And the dead.
Four former Russian detainees who fought alongside Wagner in eastern Ukraine said they had received calls and messages providing them with new military contracts in recent weeks, confirming recent reports through Russian military bloggers. Three veterans said they were invited in particular to sign up for Rosgvardia, Russia’s militarized organization. National Guard.
Originally conceived as a rearguard force, Rosgvardia has grown in importance since the invasion of Ukraine under the leadership of Victor Zolotov, a former bodyguard to President Vladimir V. Putin has ordered a primary mobilization since the invasion began, mobilizing thousands of troops, but he has resisted other calls of similar magnitude, as well as fueling public discontent ahead of next year’s presidential election.
“Wagner officially becomes a Rosgvardia unit,” reads a recruiting text obtained last week through a Wagner veteran and published in The New York Times. “The overall structure, execution strategies and commanders remain the same. “
The authenticity of the message may only be verified, but it is part of broader efforts through Rosgvardia to cast himself as the successor to Wagner, a sprawling pro-Kremlin paramilitary force that at its peak numbered tens of thousands of fighters on three continents.
Wagner, which relied heavily on convicts who enlisted in exchange for a pardon, played the leading role in Russia’s months-long crusade to capture the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. The fall of the city to Russia in May marked a significant victory for the Kremlin’s army in more than more than a year of fighting, at the cost of tens of thousands of casualties.
But the personal rivalry between Wagner’s founder, Eugene V. Prigozhin, and the Russian military high command came to a head soon after, when Prigozhin mutinied in June and sent several thousand troops on a failed march on Moscow.
After the mutiny, Prigozhin led his loyalists into exile in neighboring Belarus, but continued to travel to Russia to manage his affairs there. In August, he and his closest commanders were killed in a plane crash in central Russia, in what Western intelligence called an assassination.
The Kremlin has denied any involvement, calling the accident an accident.
Zolotov, a former bodyguard and current boss of Rosgvardia, is widely regarded as one of the main beneficiaries of Zolotov’s downfall. Prior to the war, Rosgvardia had basically monitored public events and scattered demonstrations; After the invasion, his troops entered Ukraine to help occupy the conquered territory.
Shortly after Wagner’s mutiny, Zolotov announced that Rosgvardia would obtain heavy weapons, the type of apparatus that Wagner had once gained when Prigozhin was pro-Kremlin.
Putin has long pitted top officials and businessmen against each other, a formula of rivalries that has allowed Putin’s and Prigozhin’s enmity with the military to intensify. Some analysts interpreted the move to bolster Rosgvardia as a way to bolster an unbreakable faction, especially after the Russian military put up no significant resistance to Wagner rebels as they approached the capital in June.
A Rosgvardia regional worker, who is not authorized to speak publicly, explained on condition of anonymity that the force recently created a special brigade to space out former detainees who fought for Wagner.
Other former Wagner members appear to have joined the Akhmat tactical unit in Rosgvardia, in the Chechen region of southern Russia.
Russian state television released a video earlier this month purporting to show an educational consultation for former Wagner members who now serve with Akhmat in Ukraine.
“Surely we have kept everything,” an obvious fighter, dressed in Wagner and Akhmat uniform patches, told RT television. “We’re the same as before. “
The video’s claims may not be independently verifiable, but the fate of a former Wagner fighter testifies to Akhmat’s attempts to recruit former paramilitaries. A former detainee named Aleksei Velizhantsev, who had previously served with Wagner, died in September in Ukraine. after re-enlisting in Akhmat, according to a former classmate and a social media post through his mother.
The Russian military, Rosgvardia’s rival at times, has also tried to woo Wagner veterans, according to a user close to the country’s Defense Ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity on the subject of domestic politics.
Russian independent media outlet Important Stories this month published an internal Russian government recruiting document that indexed former Wagner members among the target groups.
The Defense Ministry, which oversees the military, said it had recovered a bunch of Wagner heavy weapons parts after the mutiny. And shortly after Prigozhin’s death, Putin met with one of Wagner’s top surviving commanders and Deputy Defense Minister to discuss creating new “volunteer units” within the Russian armed forces.
Oleg Matsnev contributed to the research.
Anatoly Kurmanaev is a foreign correspondent on Russia’s transformation after its invasion of Ukraine. Learn more about Anatoly Kurmanaev
Advertisement