Ilmari Käihkö, Docent of Military Science, Aleksanteri Institute Visiting Researcher, considers Prigozhin’s announcement a threat, but sees that Wagner’s role may be diminishing in Ukraine.
Director of the Russian mercenary company Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin has announced that they will withdraw Wagner’s soldiers from the Ukrainian city of Bahmut next Wednesday. The Finnish docent of military sciences considers the announcement a threat.
– Prigozhin has criticized the Russian army and the Russian Ministry of Defense a lot during the war. This can also be a political game and this kind of threat gets headlines, Ilmari Käihkö evaluate by phone.
The threat to withdraw from Bahmut was preceded by a video posted by Prigozhin’s messaging service Telegram, in which he stood in the middle of a pile of corpses and directed his furious words at the chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov and the Russian Minister of Defense To Sergei Shoigu
– They are Wagner’s soldiers who died today. The blood is still fresh, Prigozhin said.
– They are some fathers and sons. And you bastards don’t want to give them ammo.
“Russia’s ability to attack would weaken”
Käihkö believes that if Yevgeni Prigozhin carries out his threat and withdraws his troops from Bahmut, it will have an impact on the fighting.
– Russia’s military capability in Bahmut would dwindle considerably, Käihkö estimates.
– Russia’s hopes of taking over the city – if they didn’t collapse, they would at least weaken.
However, he points out that Wagner is not alone in the city, there are also Russian army troops there. The withdrawal of the mercenaries would therefore not mean the withdrawal of all Russian troops from the city.
“Wagner has been a patch”
Käihkö sees that Wagner’s position in the Ukrainian war may be weakening. The mercenary company was needed last summer when it became clear that the Russian military did not have enough troops to carry out a “rapid military special operation” in Ukraine.
Russia found itself in many ways in the same position as Ukraine had been in when Russia occupied the Crimean peninsula in 2014, Käihkö points out.
– There were not enough men in Russia, emergency solutions had to be made, they tried to rely on volunteers. It didn’t work out.
Then the eyes turned to Wagner, and to its leader, who began to hire men from prison into his ranks.
Now Russia has managed to recruit 320,000 men in its autumn campaign, and Wagner’s importance has weakened.
– There may not be the same need for Wagner as there was then. So the wound has healed.
“The army takes a bigger role”
Käihkö estimates that the Russian regular army will take a bigger role in the war in the future.
– The war has become established. The army is established. In that sense, I call Wagner a patch. It was a forced solution after the summer when the crew ran out.
Käihkö also believes that Russia’s tactics in the war may be changing. There has been a struggle within the army about whether to attack or defend now. The military may now focus on defense.
– Russia’s spring offensive has failed. They haven’t accomplished anything significant. The losses have been great. It has seemed from the outside that attacking has been a bad decision.
However, Käihkö is not ready to completely exclude Wagner from the bills.
– It may be that the time of the band-aid is over, when Wagner can be gradually abandoned. But it may not be that time yet. It may also be that they get more support. Time will tell.