Russia’s armed forces are stepping up their efforts to recruit veterans of the Wagner paramilitary group, in response to former fighters and navy bloggers, because the Kremlin tries to keep away from one other spherical of mobilization and salvage a few of the pressure’s preventing potential within the wake of its chief’s mutiny and dying.
4 former Russian inmates who fought with Wagner in japanese Ukraine mentioned that they had acquired calls and messages providing new navy contracts in current weeks, confirming current stories by Russian navy bloggers. Three former fighters mentioned they had been particularly urged to affix Rosgvardia, Russia’s militarized nationwide guard.
Initially envisioned as a rear-guard pressure, Rosgvardia has gained prominence because the invasion of Ukraine underneath the management of Victor Zolotov, a former bodyguard of President Vladimir V. Putin. Mr. Putin has ordered one main mobilization because the invasion started, calling up a whole lot of 1000’s of males, however he has resisted one other draft of comparable scale, partly to keep away from stoking public discontent earlier than subsequent yr’s presidential election.
“Wagner is formally changing into a unit of Rosgvardia,” learn a recruitment textual content acquired by a former Wagner fighter final week and seen by The New York Occasions. “All the construction, strategies of labor and commanders stay the identical.”
The authenticity of the message couldn’t be verified, but it surely comes amid wider efforts by Rosgvardia to current itself as a successor to Wagner, a sprawling pro-Kremlin paramilitary pressure that at its peak numbered tens of 1000’s fighters throughout three continents.
Wagner, relying closely on jail convicts who enlisted in return for a pardon, performed the main half in Russia’s monthslong marketing campaign to seize the japanese Ukrainian metropolis of Bakhmut. Town’s fall to Russia in Could delivered the Kremlin’s solely important navy victory in over a yr of preventing, at the price of tens of 1000’s of casualties.
However the private rivalry between Wagner’s founder, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, and Russia’s navy excessive command got here to a head quickly afterward, when Mr. Prigozhin mutinied in June, sending a number of 1000’s of troops on an aborted march on Moscow.
After the mutiny, Mr. Prigozhin led his loyalists into exile in neighboring Belarus, however he continued to journey inside Russia to handle his companies there. In August, he and his closest commanders died in a aircraft crash in central Russia, in what Western intelligence officers have described as an assassination.
The Kremlin has denied involvement, calling the crash an accident.
Mr. Zolotov, the previous bodyguard and present head of Rosgvardia, has been extensively thought to be one of many major beneficiaries of Mr. Prigozhin’s downfall. Earlier than the warfare, Rosgvardia had largely guarded public occasions and damaged up protests; throughout the invasion, its troops crossed into Ukraine to assist occupy the conquered territory.
Shortly after Wagner’s mutiny, Mr. Zolotov introduced that Rosgvardia would obtain heavy weaponry — the form of tools that Wagner had as soon as been given when Mr. Prigozhin was within the Kremlin’s favor.
Mr. Putin has lengthy performed senior officers and businessmen in opposition to one another, a system of rivalries that allowed Mr. Prigozhin’s feud with the navy to fester. Some analysts have interpreted the transfer to bolster Rosgvardia as a approach to strengthen a loyal faction, particularly after the Russian Military supplied no important resistance to Wagner rebels as they neared the capital in June.
A regional Rosgvardia worker, not approved to talk publicly, confirmed on situation of anonymity that the pressure has lately created a particular brigade to obtain former inmates who had fought for Wagner.
Different former Wagner members seem to have joined Rosgvardia’s Akhmat tactical unit based mostly within the southern Russian area of Chechnya.
Russian state tv revealed a video earlier this month purporting to indicate a coaching session by former Wagner members who now serve with Akhmat in Ukraine.
“Now we have preserved completely every thing,” one obvious fighter, sporting each Wagner and Akhmat uniform patches, advised the tv channel RT. “We’re the identical as we had been earlier than.”
The claims made within the video couldn’t be independently verified, however the destiny of 1 former Wagner fighter does level to Akhmat’s makes an attempt to recruit former paramilitaries. A former inmate named Aleksei Velizhantsev, who had beforehand served with Wagner, died in September in Ukraine after re-enlisting in Akhmat, in response to a former comrade and a social media submit posted by his mom.
The Russian Military, one other someday rival of Rosgvardia, has additionally sought to lure Wagner veterans, in response to an individual near the nation’s protection ministry, who mentioned inner coverage on situation of anonymity.
The impartial Russian information outlet Necessary Tales this month revealed an inner Russian authorities recruitment doc that listed former Wagner members as one of many goal teams.
The protection ministry, which oversees the military, has claimed that it took a whole lot of items of Wagner’s heavy weaponry following the mutiny. And shortly after Mr. Prigozhin’s dying, Mr. Putin met with certainly one of Wagner’s most senior surviving commanders and a deputy protection minister to debate the creation of latest “volunteer models” contained in the Russian Armed Forces.
Oleg Matsnev contributed analysis.
