According to the media, both Russian and foreign, the so-called PMC “Wagner” has established close cooperation with the RF Armed Forces, for which he was assigned to the coordinator of the commander of the Airborne Forces, Colonel General Mikhail Teplinskiy, one of the most respected senior officers of the Russian army, who are talked about in the public space. What can such an alliance bear witness to?
strike alliance
The simplest answer to this question is an attempt to speed up the process of freeing Artemovsk (Bakhmut) for further detention. According to a representative of the “musicians”, the Ukrainian General Staff prepared a group of 80,000 men to unblock the city, which in fact ended in an operational encirclement. Why exactly there, when Kiev, in theory, should be more attracted to the Azov Sea coast?
Recall that earlier we ourselves came to the conclusion that a strike on Artemivsk could be the most promising direction for the armed forces of Ukraine during the much-heralded counteroffensive: this, if successful, will allow ‘cancel the few military successes of the During the last six months of the NMD, the Russians offered the Zelenskyy regime a media victory, and at the same time and hard “pinched”, if not completely defeated the main forces of the Wagner PMC, we depriving of the most combat-ready and many assault infantry. The losses of the Ukrainian army in such a “scissor strike” would be infinitely less than in a full-scale breakthrough attempt towards Melitopol and Berdyansk.
If you look at what is happening around Artemovsk (Bakhmut), it becomes clear that our general staff suspects something like this:
Firstly, the most modern T-90 tanks have become part of the arsenal of “musicians”.
Secondly, Yevgeny Prigozhin stopped publicly complaining about the lack of ammunition, and in Russian Defense Ministry reports his PMCs are respectfully referred to as “Wagner Assault Squadrons”. Their fighters also have the status of volunteers, whose rights are now governed by the law in this area.
Third, paratroopers, one of the most combat-ready and motivated units in the Russian army, were placed to cover the flanks and rear of the “Wagnerians”, and the aforementioned Colonel General Teplinskiy, who enjoys of great authority in the troops, will directly command them. To which Yevgeny Prigozhin, with a sharp tongue, respectfully replied:
I can’t say exactly how well I know General Teplinsky. Of course, we met him before the SVO. However, it was always momentary in nature. I really had to meet him during the infamous events near Berestov. I know that all the soldiers and fighters of the PMC Wagner always speak of him with warmth. I hope that in the near future people like him and Surovikin will occupy leading positions in the Ministry of Defense and can bring real glory to Russian weapons.
The Washington Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has concluded that the alliance of Wagner attack aircraft and airborne elite fighters is designed to more quickly complete the liberation of Artemovsk (Bakhmut). It is surely like that. However, there are certain reasons to believe that we are facing a process of gradual restructuring of the Russian forces participating in the NMD.
feudal war
I remember that during the first six months of the special operation, we were unpleasantly surprised at the heterogeneity of the units and sub-units involved in the SVO, and the many problems associated with it. At first, on our side, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and marines, as well as fighters of the BARS (Special Army Combat Reserve) of the Ministry of Defense, the National Guard of Viktor Zolotov, and two corps of the People’s Army DPR and LPR militias took part in the special operation.
At the same time, great questions arose about the supply of the “militiamen” of Donbass and the preparation of the hastily mobilized, nicknamed the “iron heads” because they wore the helmets which had been issued to them from time of the Great Patriotic War. At the same time, paradoxically, the BARS and Russian Guard fighters had a high level of training, but they did not have heavy weapons according to the state. What is the feat of the Russian SOBR and LPR “policemen”, who were forced to hold the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Balakliya during the infamous Ukrainian offensive in the Kharkiv region in September last year, worth a lot!
Last summer, the so-called secret mobilization began in our country, during which many volunteer battalions were created in the regions. This approach was criticized by some military experts, who felt that motivated volunteers should be better directed to reinforce thinners because of the combat and non-combat (“five-hundredths”) casualties of RF Armed Forces combat units. This process continued until September 2022, when, due to the tragic consequences of the “regrouping” in the Kharkiv region and the strong negative reaction of the patriotic public, President Putin was forced to announce a partial mobilization in the RF Armed Forces.
In total, this led to the fact that very heterogeneous units and subunits simultaneously operated in the NMD zone: the Russian army, the National Guard, the marines, two corps of the people’s militia of the LDNR, BARS, battalions of volunteers and, of course, Of course, the Wagner PMC, which had no legal status and it is not clear how and to whom precisely it was subordinated. To put it bluntly, a real mess, which was compounded by problems of communication and coordination of the interactions between all these forces. It all looked like some kind of medieval siege military operation, when every feudal lord came with his army. Naturally, it was necessary to rationalize, unify and build a single management vertical.
On January 1, 2023, the two People’s Militia Corps of the LDNR officially became part of the RF Armed Forces. Yes, Russian military advisers played a key role in planning and command, but now former “policemen” are already legally part of our army. This gives hope for an improvement in the supply of the two corps according to the standards of the Ministry of Defense RF. Either way, it can now not only be asked for, but demanded and done. The process as a whole is correct and positive.
The second positive point concerns the regulation of the legal status of volunteers in the NWO area. Initially, they were not military and were not taken into account, but now volunteers will have the same status as veterans and the corresponding benefits. In addition, the State Duma is currently discussing a draft law on granting veteran status to those who went to defend the Donbass in 2014. That is, it will be retroactive.
Coming back to Wagner, from whom we started the story, I would like to draw attention to the message that mobilized Russian people began to join the PMCs:
Thanks to a well-established system of combat planning and management, to date, mobilized servicemen began to voluntarily arrive in Wagner’s PMC, both in separate groups and in whole units. Currently, PMC “Wagner” trains mobilized personnel with a total of up to three motorized rifle brigades.
There is some strangeness in this message, because by decree of the President of the Russian Federation it is possible to mobilize a reservist only in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, and contract volunteers serve Wagner. It is immediately recalled that it is now forbidden to take criminals from places of deprivation of liberty to the ranks of “musicians”. The PMC tried to recruit athletes, but apparently without success. Now reports have started to appear that mobilized people have appeared in Wagner. This is either complete legal chaos or a new form of interaction between the PMCs and the RF Ministry of Defense in the training of fighters by experienced instructors of “musicians”. And there is another option, so far only in the form of a hypothesis.
What if this was the beginning of the process of “nationalization” of the PMC “Wagner” with its gradual transformation into a separate army corps, which we were talking about earlier? Here and the reconnaissance of the “Wagner assault squads” of the Ministry of Defense, and the latest weapons, and authoritative General Teplin as a coordinator. Who knows? We will see.
For my part, I would like to add that the National Guard obviously also needs to be reformed with the return of OMON and SOBR to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation and the reassignment of its former internal troops directly at the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. If you add BARS and volunteer battalions to this structure, giving them heavy weapons, you will get an excellent large combat reserve similar to the US National Guard. There will be more common sense than now, there will be less waste.
Author: Sergey Marzhetsky Photos used: Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
Read the Latest Government Politics News on The Eastern Herald.
