Infighting in Russia as Wagner head publicly shames Putin’s military leadership

The founder of Wagner Group released an image showing the perished bodies of dozens of his fighters on February 22nd in an attempt to get officials in Moscow to resume ammunition shipments to the embattled mercenary organization, and it seemed to have worked. 

On February 20th, Yevgeny Prigozhin accused Russian military officials of withholding ammunition from his fighters as they struggled against Ukrainian forces in the areas surrounding Bakhmut. 

Speaking for over seven minutes in an audio message released by Wagner, Prigozhin said that he was “unable to solve this problem despite all my connections and contacts.”

“Those who interfere with us trying to win this war are absolutely, directly working for the enemy,” the Wagner chief said, in what appeared to be a deliberate dig at his opponents in the Russian government. 

Prigozhin and his merry band of mercenary fighters have been at odds with officials in the Russian government since they’ve shown themselves to be more capable than Putin’s regular forces. 

“Prigozhin has been one of Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu’s most fiery critics,” according to Al Jazeera, “insisting that his own men are far more effective than the regular army.”

Officials in Moscow denied claims that the Ministry of Defense was withholding ammunition, calling them “absolutely false,” according to Jamie Dettmer of Politico. 

“All requests for ammunition for assault units are met as soon as possible,” the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement reported on by Dettmer, which went on to praise the “courage” of Wagner’s volunteer fighters in Ukraine. 

For Prigozhin’s part, he directly blamed Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s Chief of the General Staff, and Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s Minister of Defense, saying that they ordered ammunition shipments to Wagner be halted.

“The chief of general staff and the defense minister give out orders left and right not only to not give ammunition to PMC Wagner but also do not help it with air transport,” Prigozhin said in his audio message. 

"There is just direct opposition going on, which is nothing less than an attempt to destroy Wagner. This can be equated to high treason,” Wagner’s leader added.

When Prigozhin’s public blasting of Russian defense officials didn’t work, he released an image of dozens of dead Wagner soldiers in order to pressure the Russian military to resume its ammunition shipments. 

"They didn’t give us ammunition, and they still don’t,” Prigozhin wrote in a quote that accompanied the image of the dead Wagner Group troops. “It’s now 10 o'clock in the morning on 22 February.”

“No steps have been taken to issue ammunition,” The Wagner founder added. “What’s the problem? I will explain. I’m posting a photo below. This is one of the gathering places of the dead.”

“These are the guys who died yesterday because of the so-called shell famine. There should have been five times fewer of them,” Prigozhin added in a translation provided by Ukrainska Pravda. 

Prigozhin’s publicity stunt seemed to do the trick because less than one day later he announced that ammunition shipments to Wagner Group soldiers fighting in Ukraine had resumed. 

"So far, it's all on paper but, so we have been told, the principal documents have already been signed," Prigozhin said in a translation provided by Reuters. 

"I would like to thank all those who helped us do this. You saved hundreds, maybe thousands of lives of guys who are defending their homeland, gave them a chance to move on with their lives,” Prigozhin added. 

In his annual State of the Nation address on February 21st, Vladimir Putin said he wanted infighting within his different military groups to stop so that they could focus on prosecuting the war in Ukraine. 

"We must get rid of—I want to emphasize this—any interdepartmental contradictions, formalities, grudges, misunderstandings, and other nonsense," Putin said.

The Russian leader's words may have had an influence on the situation that was unfolding between Prigozhin and the country's most important military and political figures, though we should expect to see more infighting as the war rages on.