Pentagon leakage: Between the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and the Wagner PEC is a real enmity - WP

According to journalists, the head of "Wagner" Prigogin appealed to Putin personally so that he would allow him to recruit zecs and foreigners in his group. However, the President of the Russian Federation was on the side of the Russian generals. The Russian military and political leadership tried to suppress the criticism of the chairman of the Wagner PEC "Yevgeny Prigogin.

About it writes the edition of The Washington Post with reference to the secret documents of the Pentagon, which fled to the network. According to the documents, the Ministry of Defense officials considered the possibility of starting a public campaign to discredit Prigogine through trustees. "Officials initially stated that if MO is going to counteract Prigogine's public statements, they should find allies with equal status to combat podigin, not to do it themselves," one of the documents reads.

However, according to journalists, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation was not sure that it would be able to successfully conduct an information campaign against Prigogine, if the Russian Government did not forbid it to make loud public statements. The document states that the conclusions are made based on the report of radio intelligence. However, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation denies any strife with Prigogin.

According to Senior Researcher at the Institute for Foreign Policy in Philadelphia Rob Lee, Prigogine did not always present a problem for the Kremlin, threatening the unity in the war against Ukraine. "Putin loves to use competing groups as a way of preserving power, but it is very harmful in military operations," the analyst said.

The secret documents that have fled to the network states that the Russian military cannot say exactly whether the "Wagner" had a lack of ammunition due to the deliberate actions of the Ministry of Defense. The fact is that the ammunition was not directly distributed from the ministry, but through the operational group in Bakhmut. However, then in the first half of February 2023, the requests of the Wagner PEC were executed, though not completely.

As Prigogine's rhetoric became tougher, the Ministry of Defense officials suggested double the supply of ammunition to the Wagner. They even planned to publish public reports. According to the documents, Prigogine was summoned to a meeting with Putin and the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Sergei Shoigu on February 22.

"The meeting was almost certainly concerned with at least partially public accusations of Prigogine and the tensions that follows from this in relations with Shoiga," one of the documents reads. The material states that before this meeting, Prigogine argued that in mid -February he pleaded with Putin to allow him to continue to recruit prisoners in his group, as well as foreigners.

Putin ordered the Prisorsman to resolve these issues with the Ministry of Defense, actually getting to the side of his generals. Recall that on May 5, Prigogine announced the release of the mercenaries of PEC "Wagner" from Bakhmut. According to "Putin's chef", the council of occupation formation commanders decided to keep positions and continue the attack on the city until May 10, 2023 to "Victory Day to meet the brilliance of Russian weapons".