Russian businessman can compete with Wagner Group Hear and see nothing: this is the mood in Russia after 9 months of “special operations”

Does the Kremlin now see the infamous Wagner mercenaries as a threat? According to information from the Ukrainian secret service HUR: High-ranking Russian officials are said to be trying to form a military counterweight to the group founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin. The renowned American think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) writes this in an analysis on November 26.

According to the report, Russian officials have appointed pro-Kremlin businessman Armen Sarkisyan as the new administrator of prisons in Russia-occupied areas of Ukraine — a new role he would also use to launch a new “private military enterprise.” to target.

Since private military companies are actually illegal in Russia, it can be assumed that senior Russian officials approved Sarkisyan’s plans, the ISW report said. Like the Wagner group, Sarkisyan would recruit prisoners from prisons as fighters.

Prigozhin calls for further escalation of the war

Ukrainian intelligence said Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan was funding the effort. Karapetyan is the owner of Tashir Holding, a longtime supplier of Russian state energy company Gazprom.

Wagner founder Prigozhin is also called “Putin’s cook”. His catering company has several contracts with the Kremlin. For years he remained in the background. Only recently has he become more public, including criticizing Russian generals for their warfare in Ukraine. Prigozhin belongs to the radical wing, the part of the Moscow elite that calls for further escalation of the war.

At the same time, in Ukraine, Putin urgently depends on the fighting power of Wagner mercenaries and soldiers of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, the renowned American think tank “Institute for the Study of War” wrote in October – and that Prigozhin poses a threat to Putin’s regime could represent.

An alleged whistleblower from Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, the FSB, recently disclosed that Prigozhin and Kadyrov believed their time had come to make their mark. According to the man, the domestic intelligence service therefore assumes that Prigozhin and Kadyrov are planning a series of provocations with the aim of demonstrating the FSB’s “alleged inability” to control the situation in the country. “If everything goes according to Prigozhin’s scenario, we will lose both control and the country,” the Russian secret service concluded.

Mercenaries from the Wagner paramilitary group are deployed in Latin America, Africa and Ukraine, among other places. Kremlin confidant Prigozhin only publicly admitted in September that he founded the long-secret group. In October, it opened an official headquarters in St. Petersburg. (cpf)