The ritual humiliation of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group’s (former?) boss, continues. A few days ago, photographs were released after a police raid on his St. Petersburg home. Other than the usual pictures of oligarch excess (designed presumably to undermine Prigozhin’s man-of-the-people image), there were pictures designed to make him look ridiculous (photographs of him in absurd disguises) and sinister (a photograph of a framed photo of some severed heads).
Now there’s this via the Daily Telegraph:
A photograph of Yevgeny Prigozhin sitting in his underpants was leaked online shortly after Vladimir Putin said the Wagner Group no longer exists.
In the photograph, the mercenary leader is sitting on a small unmade bed inside a large tent, waving at the camera. He is wearing a beige T-shirt, which accentuates his belly, and black Y-fronts.
And this:
This week, photos from a raid by Russian security forces on Prigozhin’s home in St Petersburg showed that a hospital bed had been set up in one of the rooms. An unnamed source said that Prigozhin had been suffering from cancer.
This presumably was designed to discourage some would-be Prigozhin followers. Why risk supporting a rebel who might be mortally sick?
Most interesting, of course, was Putin’s statement that Wagner Group no longer existed (as, presumably, a separate entity).
Back to the Daily Telegraph:
In an interview with the Kommersant newspaper, the president confirmed he had met Prigozhin and 35 Wagner commanders on June 29, five days after their rebellion, to offer them the chance to fight under the Russian army.
“They would all be able to stick together in one place and to continue their service,” he said of his offer during the meeting. “Nothing will change for them. They will still be led by the same person who has been their real commander all this time.”
Kommersant said Putin then named this “real” Wagner leader as “Grey Hair”, the military callsign for Andrei Troshev, a hard-drinking former Russian army colonel. He is a veteran of wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya and led Wagner forces into battle against Islamic State in Syria in 2016.
Putin said: “Wagner does not exist. There is no law on private military organisations. It just doesn’t exist.”
Prigozhin was never in the Russian army and was nicknamed “Putin’s chef”. Putin said the 62-year-old had openly disagreed with him at their post-rebellion meeting when he offered Wagner leaders the opportunity to join the Russian army.
“Many nodded when I said this,” Putin said of the Wagner commanders’ reaction. “But Prigozhin, who was sitting in front and did not see this, said after listening: ‘No, the guys do not agree with this decision.’”
The fact that Putin mentioned that Prigozhin was still objecting (seemingly fruitlessly) suggests that forgiveness is not going to be forthcoming, which is hardly a surprise.
Meanwhile, Wagner appears to have been put under formal state control. Its clients in Africa and elsewhere have reportedly been told that Russia will be stepping into its shoes. It seems that Grey Hair will be in charge.
The Daily Telegraph also has a brief profile of Troshev, who previously was (reportedly) head of Wagner’s internal security service (Wagner is/was notorious for the cruelty of the discipline it imposed on its troops) and a veteran of the Chechen and Afghan wars, as well as of OMON, Russian’s paramilitary riot police. He was active in Syria with Wagner and also said to have directed its capture of Bakhmut, the city that became a mini-Stalingrad.
On July 3, Newsweek reported that Troshev had been fired by the Wagner group. According to the same report:
Russian insider channels on Telegram circulated a document allegedly leaked by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) that suggests Troshev informed the Kremlin’s top brass about the Wagner Group’s planned rebellion, ordering military units to stand down during the mutiny.
Maybe he is now getting his reward.
Troshev appears be an effective, brutal soldier. He was highly decorated for his services in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and again for leading an attack against ISIS on Palmyra.
There’s also this (via the Telegraph):
When doctors working at a St Petersburg hospital in 2017 looked through the belongings of the paralytic drunk that paramedics had just dropped off, they were amazed.
The comatose, stocky middle-aged man with a mop of grey hair was carrying five million roubles (£42,250) and $5,000 in cash, military maps of Syria, receipts for new weapons and electronic plane tickets.
It was Troshev.
I wondered how the Telegraph’s reporter discovered this not altogether dignified piece of information, but, on checking, it was easy to see that the details were fairly widely reported at the time, and included some details on who Troshev was believed to be working for.
Fontanka’s [Fontanka is a St. Peterburg news site] sources say Troshev currently works for a man named Dmitry Utkin, also known as “Wagner,” who’s suspected of leading a group of Russian mercenaries now operating in Syria. Uktin has been spotted on trips with representatives of billionaire Evgeny Prigozhin’s security service, and he’s believed to have worked with Prigozhin’s catering business, “Concord.”
The Moscow Times (June 6, 2017):
Troshev is also said to be a “close associate” of Dmitri Utkivn [Utkin], the leader of the Wagner mercenary group fighting in Syria. Wagner is thought to have close ties to the state, with Utkivn himself receiving medals from President Putin.
Utkin, a former colonel in the GRU (Russian military intelligence, which has its own troops) is usually described as the co-founder of Wagner, which may or may not be true. Indeed “Wagner” may well have originally been his call sign, a nod to his alleged neo-Nazi sympathies. The irony of a supposed neo-Nazi having taken a prominent role in the so-called denazification of Ukraine has been lost on no one. The GRU has historically been close to Wagner. Before Wagner, Utkin was with the Slavonic Corps, which was a forerunner of Wagner and, according to Jamestown, was:
Russia’s first and, in many ways, rather experimental “new type” private military company (PMC), concerned with tasks typically performed by private armies, such as frontal attacks and combat operations—in contrast with Western PMCs, which are mainly assigned auxiliary or training roles.
Andrei Gurulyov (the Russian MP contacted by the general fired for speaking out about the conduct of the war, as discussed here) was quoted as saying in the immediate aftermath of the mutiny that both Prigozhin and Utkin deserved “a bullet in the head.” If Troshev is (and, according to Putin, was) the “real commander” of Wagner, where, I wonder, does that leave Utkin, who, in the past, has been described in the same way.
Make of it all what you will.