the showdown between Wagner and the Russian army continues over a contract story

There remain ten days with Wagner to answer the call of the Russian army. By Saturday July 1st, the formations of volunteers engaged in the war in Ukraine will have to have signed a contract with the Ministry of Defence. Dated June 10, this order by Minister Sergei Shoigu must offer legal protection (medical support, social benefits, etc.) to combatants and their families. Even if it means calling into question the fierce independence of the paramilitary group Wagner, with its own command and its own rules.

With these contracts, the Russian forces hope above all to gain in efficiency on the ground, by putting their affairs in order. Because the statutes of those who fight under the banner of Moscow are varied: alongside the army, “numerous units, volunteer detachments and other formations” participate in the fighting, listed Alexei Kim, Deputy Chief of the Russian General Staff. The text also grants combatants the right to sign contracts with either volunteer detachments or the army, said Deputy Minister Nikolai Pankov. About forty battalions are concerned in total, most created at the regional level, within the framework of individual initiatives launched by governors.

Targeted volunteer battalions

The Chechen Akhmat battalion was the first to initial this agreement and to make it known in a video widely relayed by the authorities. These special forces, often described as the private militia of Ramzan Kadyrov, are now “officially part of the Ministry of Defence”, greeted the Chechen dictator. On June 13, three brigades and four separate detachments of volunteers signed in turn, followed by ten more the following day. In a message relayed by the government, a representative of a brigade called Terek planned a “enthusiastic welcome” within the ranks.

The war allowed the appearance or the rise in power of many other profit-making structures (Convoy, Redut, companies linked to Gazprom, etc.). However, these private military companies (PMCs) remain prohibited on paper, and the Russian authorities have still not decided their fate. Some observers believe that the legal framework concocted by the Ministry of Defense must make it possible to legalize the PMCs, while others consider that it is a way of putting them under guardianship. During a meeting organized with military bloggers, Vladimir Putin contented himself with evoking the situation of the “volunteers”without further details.

Yevgeny Prigojine, in any case, affirms that Wagner is concerned by these contracts, larmy having sent him a document to demand, before June 15, information on its manpower, its armament and its losses. The person concerned was annoyed by this, directly castigating the minister and the high command. “Wagner will not sign a contract with the armyhe reacted. Most military units [régulières] do not have our efficiency, because [Sergueï] Shoigu is unable to manage them properly”.

The leader of Wagner also fears a takeover by the army over his group if he were to sign the contract. Are these fears justified? “We can clearly see that the chain of command is already not obvious within the Ministry of Defense itself, which is experiencing a lot of problems in the military organization”, comments researcher Anne Le Huérou, a specialist in Russia. According to her, the main risk for Wagner would be to be weaned from ammunition, even dispossessed of certain equipment which would then be redistributed to other less well off formations.

Prigojine castigates (again) the staff

Evgeny Prigojine claims “a compromise solution” offering social guarantees to its combatants, without however recognizing their dependence on a ministry “privatized by a group of individuals”. The business of the contract illustrates, in any case, the execrable relations between this militia and the army. For months now, the founder of Wagner has been multiplying attacks against Minister Sergei Shoigu and the Russian general staff, accused of all evils and of having refused him ammunition. The capture of Bakhmout had been the occasion for a long-range duel with the army, each trying to exploit the political benefit of this victory.

The showdown drags on. With a certain taste for provocation, Evguéni Prigojine went to the Ministry of Defense to submit his own version of the contract. The document was refused at the counter, but forwarded by “other channels”, he assures. The founder of Wagner leaves it to the ministry to reveal the content, but the third page, visible in the video, announces the color. It stipulates that Wagner employees act according to the rules of the group, and that its commanders “participate in the development” operations, during joint actions with the army. They have, as such, a “power of veto”.

By dint of provocations, however, the tide could turn. The paramilitary group had known how to make itself indispensable in Bakhmout, at the cost of incredible losses, but the chapter is now closed. The Russian army, moreover, did not appreciate that Wagner’s men placed one of its officers in detention at the beginning of June.

The fate of detainees recruited to fight in question

Moscow has already regained control of one of the paramilitary group’s recruitment pools: prisons. Since February 1, the Ministry of Defense has recruited 15,000 detainees, according to the NGO Russia Behind Bars. A bill presented to the Duma must also fill a legal vagueness, by granting a dispensation from sentence to certain convicts who have joined the front line. Until now, Yevgeny Prigojine lured prisoners with promises of freedom. He thus declared on Monday that 32,000 former prisoners had already been able to return freely to Russia after the end of their contract with Wagner.

“The authorities have been trying for months to regain control of events and give the impression that they have the situation under control.explains researcher Anne Le Huérou to franceinfo. But recruiting in prison or allowing remissions of sentences is not necessarily an admission of great strength. It is an admission of reluctance to trigger a greater mobilization, given the difficulties experienced during past waves.

THE British Ministry of Defense considers the July 1 ultimatum as a “key stage of the quarrel” between Yevgeny Prigojine and the Russian army. If the leader of the private company refused until the end to initial the document, the authority of the general staff would be seriously undermined. A signature, on the other hand, would have two immediate legal consequences, underlines the Lieber Institute, an American military center. Actions committed by the group in violation of international law would henceforth be attributable to the Russian state. And the future captives, then, would be entitled to the statute of prisoner of war.

These announcements come as Wagner claims to have operated, on June 5, a temporary withdrawal from Ukraine for three months, the time to regain strength. But “If Choigou continues to deprive us of oxygen, we will stay in training camps, or we will even return to Africa, waiting for them to call us back”commented an anonymous commander, contacted by Novaia Gazeta Europe. “AT Judging by the way things are developing at the front, it will happen very soon.”