Kremlin to keep Shoigu in office despite Prigozhin's blackmail attemps ISW reports

The Kremlin is likely attempting to signal that Shoigu will maintain his position for now and that Putin will not give into Prigozhin’s blackmail attempt, the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says in its new report. 

The Russian MoD reported that Shoigu visited an unspecified forward command post of the Russian Western Group of Forces in Ukraine on June 26 – his first public appearance since Prigozhin’s drive on Rostov-on-Don and Moscow.

The Russian MoD previously identified that the Western Group of Forces operates on the Kupyansk-Svatove line in Kharkiv and Luhansk oblasts. Shoigu reportedly met with Western Group of Forces commander Colonel General Yevgeny Nikiforov and tasked the grouping with preventing Ukrainian advances on the frontline.

Shoigu notably did not visit the SMD headquarters in Rostov-on-Don after Wagner’s occupation of the city ended and or otherwise connect with SMD forces in southern Ukraine after the armed rebellion concluded.

It is currently unclear if the Kremlin will replace Shoigu and Gerasimov, but it is unlikely that the Kremlin would make such drastic command changes immediately since doing so would seem to be conceding to Prigozhin’s demands. ISW has previously assessed that Putin values loyalty, and Shoigu and Gerasimov have demonstrated their allegiance to Putin.

Russian sources, however, continued to speculate about Russian military command changes following Prigozhin’s armed rebellion. 

Russian milbloggers began a campaign promoting Tula Oblast Governor Alexei Dyumin to replace Shoigu as Russian defense minister by amplifying a video in which Dyumin visited a Tula volunteer battalion on June 25.

Other milbloggers claimed that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is currently investigating Dyumin’s connection to Prigozhin and Wagner’s reported access to Pantsir missile systems.

A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger suggested that the Kremlin may reshuffle Head of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate Colonel General Sergei Rudskoy, Chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ Main Combat Training Directorate Lieutenant General Ivan Buvaltsev, and Head of the General Staff’s Main Organizational and Mobilization Directorate Colonel General Yevgeny Burdinsky soon.

The milblogger claimed that the Kremlin may replace Burdinsky for his inability to account for convicts within “Storm Z” units who were then recruited by other armed formations and could replace Rudskoy for failing to implement a Kharkiv operational plan – the objectives of which are unknown.