What the rise of Prigozhin and Wagner Group tells us about Russian politics? Modern warlords of Russia may not bode well

In early 2023, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that its troops established control over Ukraine's Soledar town, nearby the war-torn Bakhmut city. Although the Ukrainian Defense Ministry quickly refuted the claim, it is considered Russia's first major victory in the battleground that came at the expense of hundreds of lives. The brutal fight over Soledar also highlighted the growing influence of Russia’s Wagner private military company (PMC) led by Yevgeni Prigozhin, a Russian business tycoon and Vladimir Putin’s close ally. As a well-known ultranationalist within the Kremlin, capturing Bakhmut and Soledar was a matter of honour for Prigozhin, so he ordered waves of troops into fighting in the region.

However, Soledar has little strategic value, unlike Bakhmut, and it is unlikely to change the battle for eastern Ukraine significantly. By some estimates, more than 4,000 Wagner fighters have been killed since November. Of them, 90 per cent come from the ranks of the 40,000 Russian prisoners the group has recruited by promising them freedom should they survive the war. As expected, statements regarding the victory in Soledar Prigozhin have leveraged the success and attention to disparage, mock and even threaten some of the most influential figures in Moscow. Unlike Putin and Shoigu, Prigozhin is constantly visiting the front, and he has no qualms about displaying himself alongside mutilated fighters or visiting a sinister makeshift morgue in a basement.

Prigozhin's anti-Shoigu and anti-Gerasimov routine is part of his carefully crafted image. Recently the internal disputes mounted significantly as Prigozhin's servicemen publicly insulted general Valeri Gerasimov, the chief of staff, who was recently appointed as the commander of the Ukrainian front. Yevgeni Prigozhin aligned with the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, another vocal critic of the Defense Ministry, frequently accused the minister Sergei Shoigu and Valeri Gerasimov of acute shortages of ammunition shortages. These developments are significant in that they reveal the growing tensions in Moscow and signal potential trajectories for a future of intra-elite conflict.

While the tactical losses of Russia in Ukraine are apparent, the brutal war campaign gradually shifts to a muscle show with the involvement of influential bureaucrats and oligarchs. Therefore, the current standoff between Prigozhin and Shoigu-Gerasimov tandem has a more political nature with particular business interests. Yevgeni Prigozhin is not the only owner of PMC in Russia, as since the war's inception, minister Sergei Shoigu owned his own PMC named Patriot and competed with rival mercenary groups for contracts in Ukraine. Moreover, the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who is also a fierce critic of the Russian military, heads a private militia of his own that is fighting in Ukraine.

Linking himself to Prigozhin’s circle, Kadyrov’s fighters participated in the conflicts in Georgia and Syria and were deployed in the war in Ukraine from the start. Since the war started, he has claimed that 12,000 Chechen troops were sent to Ukraine in February 2022.

These new dynamics may be driven by Prigozhin, Kadyrov and other hardliners vying for certain state positions. It is likely that Yevgeni Prigozhin, empowered by the Wagner group's activities in the frontline and his proximity to Vladimir Putin, would establish a conservative political party to promote "patriotic values and Russian culture" and seek a higher position within the Russian state hierarchy. Simply put, Prigozhin may find it easy to get more political dividends amid a faltering economy, social pressures, and military defeats in Ukraine that may soon stir more internal disputes within the local political elite.

Undoubtedly, Prigozhin’s patron Vladimir Putin values the advances of Wagner group has achieved on the battlefield, but his reshuffle of the war’s command structure last week, when he demoted Prigozhin's favourite general Sergei Surovikin and appointed general Gerasimov as commander of troops in Ukraine suggests that Putin cautiously watches the rising of Prigozhin and his PMC. Moreover, some critics of the Russian military losses in Ukraine and military command, such as Igor Girkin (Strelkov), who once played a key role in the annexation of Crimea in 2014, have recently accused Prigozhin of favouring his business over the war.

As the war in Ukraine continues, Prigozhin and his Wagner group will seek more dividends both in the battleground and within the Kremlin. In boosting the war narrative, Prigozhin aims to mobilize all well-known hardliners of Russia and unite them under the idea of "de-Nazification of Ukraine" and "countering the NATO enlargement toward Russia."