Wagner suggests that Russia stop attacking and focus on defending the occupied territories

Through the “programmatic” manifesto published this Friday by his press office, the head of the Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin calls for an “end point” to the so-called Special Military Operation in Ukraine (SVO in the acronym in Russian), as president Vladimir Putin christened the invasion of the neighboring country. In his opinion, the “ideal option” would be to announce the end of the intervention.

“Today, for the government and society as a whole, it is necessary to put an end to the offensive.” According to him, “the ideal option would be to announce the end of the SVO, to inform everyone that Russia has achieved the goals it planned and, in a certain sense, we have achieved them”. […] A large part of the working male population of Ukraine was wiped out, and another part was intimidated, which is why they fled to Europe.” “Russia cut off their access to the Sea of ​​Azov and a good part of the Black Sea, occupied part of Ukrainian territory and created a land corridor to Crimea,” he says in his article.

“Tooth and Nail”

This businessman close to Putin believes that now it would be important to “hold the occupied territories until death, hold on to them tooth and nail”, referring to Lugansk and to sectors held by Russian troops from Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporozhyewhich Moscow annexed last year, as well as Crimea, annexed to Russia in 2014.

Prigozhin warns that if the invasion is not stopped, “The Armed Forces of Ukraine will carry out a counter-offensive […], one of the results of which could be that somewhere they manage to break through the Russian defense.” The Wagner leader also warns against any deal with Kiev that includes the return of territory, as it would “trigger the mechanism of centrifugal forces in the Russian regions”, suggesting that this would be the beginning of the disintegration of the Russian Federation.

“Russia cannot accept any agreement […] and, if we emerge defeated from this battle, there is nothing to worry about. Russian fortified regions make it impossible to penetrate deep into them,” says Prigozhin, who emphasizes that “either the Ukrainian army will be defeated or Russia will lick its wounds, gain strength and destroy its rivals.”

Waiting for the “draw”

For his part, the spokesman for the Central Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GUR), Andri Yusov, pointed out this week that the Russian authorities would now settle for a “draw”. According to Yusov, “the Russian elites have lost faith in victory a long time ago, but they are waiting for a draw, even a situation that allows them to retain certain interests”, apparently alluding to the areas of Ukraine that are currently under Russian occupation.

The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) believes that Russian troops have exhausted their offensive potential by “losing the ability to conduct multiple strike operations in parallel.” Pentagon analysts point to the recent transfer of Kremlin units from Avdiivka to the Bakhmut region as an example. “They had to choose between taking one city or the other,” says this organization. They chose Bakhmut and, according to British military intelligence, they were making progress. “Russia has injected new energy into its assault on the city of Donetsk after Russian Defense Ministry and Wagner Group forces improved their cooperation,” the British government said on Friday.

“Assault groups of Wagner’s group continue to make the biggest advance in the center of the city, while Russian air troops have provided support for Wagner’s mercenaries deployed on the northern and southern flanks” of Bakhmut, according to the United States military intelligence service. Kingdom. And he adds that “the Ukrainian defense still holds the western districts of the city, but they were exposed to artillery fire in particular (…) they face significant supply problems, but they have properly withdrawn from the positions they were forced to cede”.

Thursday, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that its forces, which claim to control 80% of Bakhmut, they already have the local army surrounded there, which Prigozhin himself and the Ukrainian army denied. The spokesman for the group of Ukrainian troops in the east of the country, Sergui Cherevati, said that the Kiev army retains the possibility of “receiving food, ammunition and medicine from the rear, as well as evacuating the wounded.” “It is still too early to talk about a complete encirclement (of Bakhmut), Ukrainian forces still have room for maneuver,” Prigozhin announced via his Telegram account.