Russia is stepping up efforts to lure Wagner veterans back to the war in Ukraine
According to former fighters and military bloggers, the Russian armed forces are stepping up efforts to recruit veterans of the paramilitary Wagner Group, as the Kremlin tries to avoid a new round of mobilization and save some of the force’s combat potential in the wake of the mutiny of its leader. and death.
Four former Russian prisoners who fought with Wagner in eastern Ukraine said they had received calls and messages in recent weeks offering new military contracts. recent reports by Russian military bloggers. Three former fighters said they were specifically called upon to join Rosgvardia, Russia’s militarized national guard.
Originally intended as a rearguard force, Rosgvardia has gained prominence since the invasion of Ukraine led by Victor Zolotov, a former bodyguard of President Vladimir V. Putin. Mr Putin has ordered one major mobilization since the start of the invasion, calling on hundreds of thousands of men, but he has opposed another plan of similar scale, partly to avoid fueling public discontent ahead of next year’s presidential election is fueled.
“Wagner officially becomes a unit of Rosgvardia,” it said a recruiting text received last week by a former Wagner fighter and seen by The New York Times. “The entire structure, working method and commanders remain the same.”
The authenticity of the message could not be verified, but it stems from broader attempts by Rosgvardia to present itself as the successor to Wagner, a sprawling pro-Kremlin paramilitary force that at its peak numbered tens of thousands of fighters spread across three continents.
Wagner, who relied heavily on prisoners who came forward in exchange for pardons, played the leading role in the months-long Russian campaign to capture the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. The city’s fall to Russia in May gave the Kremlin its only significant military victory in more than a year of fighting, at the cost of tens of thousands of casualties.
But the personal rivalry between Wagner’s founder, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, and the Russian military high command came to a head soon after, when Mr. Prigozhin rebelled in June and sent several thousand troops on an aborted march on Moscow.
After the mutiny, Mr. Prigozhin led his loyalists into exile to neighboring Belarus, but continued to travel within Russia to manage his affairs there. In August, he and his closest commanders were killed in a plane crash in central Russia, which Western intelligence officials have described as an assassination attempt.
The Kremlin denies involvement and calls the crash an accident.
Mr Zolotov, the former bodyguard and current head of Rosgvardia, is widely seen as one of the main beneficiaries of Mr Prigozhin’s demise. Before the war, Rosgvardia had mainly monitored public events and broken up protests; During the invasion, his forces entered Ukraine to help occupy the conquered territory.
Shortly after Wagner’s mutiny, Mr. Zolotov announced that Rosgvardia would receive heavy weapons — the kind of equipment Wagner had once received when Mr. Prigozhin was in the Kremlin’s favor.
Mr. Putin has long pitted senior officials and businessmen against each other, a system of rivalry that has allowed Mr. Prigozhin’s feud with the military to fester. Some analysts have interpreted the move to strengthen Rosgvardia as a way to strengthen a loyal faction, especially after the Russian army offered no significant resistance to Wagner rebels as they approached the capital in June.
A regional Rosgvardia official, not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed on condition of anonymity that the force recently created a special brigade to receive former prisoners who had fought for Wagner.
Other former Wagner members appear to have joined Rosgvardia’s Achmat tactical unit, based in the southern Russian region of Chechnya.
Russian state television published a video earlier this month he claimed to show a training session of former Wagner members now serving with Akhmat in Ukraine.
“We have saved absolutely everything,” one apparent fighter, wearing both Wagner and Akhmat uniform patches, told RT television. “We are the same as before.”
The claims in the video could not be independently verified, but the fate of a former Wagner fighter points to Achmat’s efforts to recruit former paramilitaries. A former prisoner named Aleksei Velizhantsev, who had previously served with Wagner, died in Ukraine in September after reenlisting at Achmat, according to a former comrade and a social media post made by his mother.
The Russian military, once another of Rosgvardia’s rivals, has also tried to lure Wagner veterans, according to a person close to the country’s Defense Ministry, who discussed internal policies on condition of anonymity.
The independent Russian news channel Important Stories this month published an internal Russian government recruitment document that listed former Wagner members as one of the target groups.
The Ministry of Defense, which oversees the military, has done so claimed it took hundreds of pieces of Wagner’s heavy weaponry with him after the mutiny. And shortly after Mr. Prigozhin’s death, Mr. Putin met with one of Wagner’s top surviving commanders and a deputy defense minister to discuss the creation of new “volunteer units”. within the Russian armed forces.
Oleg Matsnev research contributed.