ISW: – – The conflict has reached its climax

The Russian mercenary group Wagner was heavily represented in the Russian force which, since August, had continually attempted to take the Ukrainian city of Pakhmut in Donetsk.

But despite the fact that they are fighting for Russia, a power struggle has developed between the group of mercenaries and the Russian army.

The news agency wrote in mid-February Reuters that the Kremlin wants more control over the group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and reportedly ordered him to stop publicly criticizing the Defense Ministry. They also reportedly ordered state media to stop naming Prigozhin and the Wagner Group.

But Prigozhin hasn’t stopped making headlines around the world, and more recently Prigozhin has expressed growing frustration with the help he’s receiving from the Russian Defense Ministry. Earlier in March, he said he was worried the government was trying to make them a scapegoat if Russia lost the war against Ukraine.

Now writes think tank Institute for the Study of War The conflict between the Russian Ministry of Defense and the leader of the Wagner Group has likely reached its climax.

The Ministry of Defense, particularly Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russian Chief of the General Staff General Valery Gerasimov, will likely seize the opportunity to use both Wagner’s elite forces and Bakhmut’s POW forces in an effort to weaken Prigozhin and destroy his ambitions for greater influence in the Kremlin, as well. Research Center Books.

Increasingly, they write, the Russian Defense Ministry limited Prigozhin’s ability to recruit convicts and secure ammunition.

Tankesmia believes that the Ministry wants revenge on Prigozhin after a conflict he started the previous May.

Prigozhin then persuaded Russian President Vladimir Putin to give him access to ammunition stocks at the Ministry of Defense and the opportunity to expand his recruitment of soldiers. A decision very unpopular with Shoigu and Gerasimov.