Russia sacrifices mercenaries as ‘live meat’ after Wagner warlord loses ‘Putin’s trust’

The infamous Wagner Group found itself under the gun not only of the Ukrainian army, but also of the Russian Ministry of Defense after its head of mercenaries lost confidence Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, once Putin’s top ally, is fighting for the survival of his mercenaries in eastern Ukraine, while the fight for Bakhmut continues to rage after months of bitter fighting.

“After the battle for Soledar, Yevgeny Prigozhin lost Putin’s trust,” Wagner expert Alexander Kovalenko told Fox News Digital. “This is due to the fact that Soledar was captured Wagner [private military company] PMC at the cost of colossal losses.

“In fact, in Soledar, Wagner PMCs lost their main backbone, and the operation itself was subjected to massive criticism within Russia,” he added.

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The Battle of Soledar revealed the first significant disagreement between the mercenary group and the Russian military, reported after the Ministry of Defense claimed victory over a salt town just 10 miles north of Bakhmut in January.

Prigozhin responded to this statement and accused the ministry of trying to steal the group’s glory.

The ministry later released a rare statement noting that it was a collaborative effort, but a public altercation revealed the real differences. between Putin’s fighting forces.

Kovalenko, the military leader of an information resistance group in Ukraine that began countering the propaganda after the Russian invasion in 2014, explained that the fact that Wagner forces had been fighting over the Donbass since the summer months was not a circumstance that garnered Prigozhin any favors.

“Prigozhin has had a complete monopoly on the conduct of hostilities in the Bakhmut region since the summer of 2022,” the Wagner expert explained.

Kovalenko said that Prigozhin’s failures cost not only the recruitment permit and access to weapons provided through the Defense Ministry, but now his forces are being used as “human shields” in the Russian military’s first line of defense.

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According to the Wagner expert, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, along with the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov, used Wagner’s failures in taking the Bakhmut sector to convince Putin to return traditional military forces to the area.

Kovalenko’s description of the changing dynamics of the battlefield in the Bakhmut sector was echoed in a Sunday report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which said the Russian Defense Ministry is currently trying to “deliberately expend both the elite and hard labor Wagner in Bakhmut to weaken Prigozhin and undermine his desire for more influence in the Kremlin.”

“Given that now Prigozhin cannot quickly compensate for the losses of his units, since he has lost his monopoly on hiring prisoners in prisons, the forces of mercenaries are being depleted very quickly,” Kovalenko said.

For months, there have been reports that Russian military officials have sought to oust Prigozhin as a pseudo-adviser to Putin, and the head of the mercenaries has become increasingly frustrated and public with his complaints — even accusing Shoigu and Gerasimov of “treason” last month for not supplying his men with enough weapons.

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“It is difficult to say whether this was a planned destruction of Wagner PMCs, but the fact [is] the Russian military command uses the Wagnerites as live meat,” Kovalenko said.

“There is nothing Prigogine can do at the moment,” he added. “He has no way to resist.”

According to ISW, Prigozhin has threatened to withdraw his Wagner forces from Bakhmut, but it is unclear how this will turn out and what this could mean for Prigozhin.

The Washington-based think tank said the Russian Department of Defense appears to be “prioritizing the elimination” of Wagner’s forces from the Bakhmut battlefield, which it says is “probably slowing down the rate of advance in the area.”

Destroying Wagner mercenary units would also mean even higher casualty rates among the Russian military, which is already suffering significant casualties in the Bakhmut sector, including up to 1,000 in the last week alone, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Western military officials have repeatedly stated that Russia sent a disproportionate amount of weapons and men to the area for little strategic gain – this suggests that the battle for Bakhmut has become largely symbolic in Moscow’s eyes.

But, according to Kovalenko, Russia can still afford to withdraw Wagner’s troops from its hostilities.

“PMC Wagner is not the only private military company operating in Russia. Now PMCs “Patriot” and PMCs “Redut”, subordinated to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, are gradually gaining popularity,” he said.

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Kovalenko explained that Russian officials have tried to expand Moscow’s use of mercenaries by diversifying groups in places like Syria, but that Prigozhin’s monopoly had previously stood in their way.

“Now the Russian military has the ability to use their PMCs and advertise them to Putin,” he said, adding that Russia’s use of forced conscription would also allow it to continue sending people to the front lines in Ukraine.