Once allies, Russia’s mercenary boss is now in a more precarious position with Putin

Tensions have emerged this week between the Kremlin and the head of Russian private military company, the Wagner Group, as President Vladimir Putin appeared to take sides in a long-running and very public dispute between Russia’s mercenaries and the defense ministry.

It’s well known that there’s no love lost between the outspoken Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russia’s Ministry of Defense; Prigozhin has openly and repeatedly criticized the ministry’s most senior officials, including Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in expletive-laden rants slamming Russia’s military strategy in Ukraine.

He has also accused senior defense officials of treachery and deliberately withholding ammunition for the Wagner Group which has spent months fighting in Bakhmut, the epicenter of intense hostilities in Ukraine.

Prigozhin has been very careful not to direct any public criticism toward the Kremlin and Putin, and is one of the president’s long-standing associates and supporters.

But now, however, tensions appear to be emerging between Prigozhin and the Russian leadership, putting him in a precarious position with the Russian president.

While Wagner has had its uses in Ukraine (and arguably, has been able to boast some gains where Russia’s regular army has not) Russia’s defense ministry has been keen to curb the group’s influence, and particularly that of Prigozhin.

The latest move to rein in the mercenary group came last Saturday when Shoigu announced that “volunteers formation” and private military companies would have to sign contracts directly with the ministry by July 1.

The ministry claimed that “this will give volunteer formations the necessary legal status, create common approaches to organizing comprehensive support and fulfilment of their tasks,” according to state news agency TASS.

Prigozhin reacted to the announcement with characteristic defiance, stating Sunday that “Wagner will not sign any contracts with Shoigu,” adding that the order did not apply to the Wagner Group.

But then the move to enforce contracts with private military companies was explicitly endorsed by Putin on Tuesday, with the president saying he wanted the law changed to legalize their activities.

“This is the only way to ensure social guarantees (for mercenary fighters) because there is (currently) no contract with the state and no contract with the Defence Ministry,” Putin told a group of war correspondents.

Remarkably, despite Putin’s comments, Prigozhin again refused to sign any contract, saying Wednesday that “when we began to participate in this war, no one said that we would be obliged to conclude agreements with the Ministry of Defense,” he said on Telegram according to a translation by Google.

He added that “none of the Wagner PMC fighters is ready to go down the path of shame again. And so no one will sign contracts.”

Prigozhin has stated that he’s confident a compromise can be found that avoids the need for a contract with the defense ministry, but analysts say the mercenary boss is on shaky ground in his apparent defiance of Putin.

The U.K’s defense ministry remarked on rising tensions Thursday, noting that “for several months, Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin has been aiming vitriolic criticism at the MoD [Ministry of Defense] hierarchy but deferred to Putin’s authority.” 

Now, it noted, that “Prigozhin’s rhetoric is evolving into defiance of broader sections of the Russian establishment.” It warned that July 1— the deadline for the volunteers to sign contracts — “is likely to be a key way-point in the feud.”

Prigozhin has become an increasingly high-profile figure, entering the independent Levada Center’s index on Russian people’s trust in public figures for the first time in May — giving him a rating of 4%. This puts him on the same trust level as former President Dmitry Medvedev and Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov.

Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, noted Wednesday that he could find himself increasingly vulnerable as he becomes more high profile, and is seen to present a possible challenge to Putin.

“Prigozhin is playing at independent politics, raising the stakes and testing the susceptibility of the system as he goes. But both technically and physically, this is only possible as long as this shaven-headed enfant terrible is useful to Putin,” Kolesnikov said in comments published in Carnegie Politika.

However, he noted, that “in the current political system … Prigozhin can only be against the elite — and popular as a result — so long as he is for Putin. It would take the slightest sign from Putin for the Wagner boss to disappear from the information space (and indeed other spaces),” he said.

While Prigozhin represents “an emerging leader who speaks to the people without intermediaries, just as befits a populist and true leader,” Kolesnikov said “the only problem is that Russia already has such a leader: President Vladimir Putin.”