He hoped that Bakhmout would be his crowning glory, but the Ukrainian city that still and always resists the Wagner group and the Russian army could just as well become his swan song.
The political fate of Yevgeny Prigojine, the controversial founder of the paramilitary Wagner society, seems increasingly linked to the outcome of the battle around Bakhmout.
Despite advances by its mercenaries, the city still remains in Ukrainian hands, according to the March 13 update on the state of the war in Ukraine compiled by the Institute for the Study of War, an American think tank. .
“Evgueni Prigozhin has been ensuring since July that the fall of the city is imminent.
There is inevitably a certain impatience which must be expressed in the highest echelons of power in Moscow”, underlines Stephen Hall, specialist in Russian politics at the University of Bath.
Battle Wagner vs Ministry of Defense
But it is not only Ukrainian soldiers who thwart Yevgeny Prigojine's military and political ambitions.
In Moscow itself, an anti-Prigozhin camp has formed around the Defense Ministry that feeds on Wagner's struggles on the ground to denigrate Vladimir Putin's former chef-turned-Russian king of mercenaries.
Yevgeny Prigojine has complained widely about this publicly in recent days.
On March 9, he assured on Telegram that his “direct communications with the Kremlin had been cut off” by his enemies in the Defense Ministry.
He also accuses them regularly for more than a month of blocking the delivery of ammunition his men would need to take Bakhmout.
Before the start of the war of invasion in Ukraine, the Wagner group was well regarded thanks to its feats of arms in Ukraine in 2014, then in Syria and, more generally, outside Russia, “including within the Ministry of the Defense which supplied him with arms and ammunition”, recalls Joseph Moses, specialist in military strategy and the conflict in Ukraine for the International Team for the Study of Security (ITSS) in Verona.
But the offensive in Ukraine launched on February 24, 2022 by Vladimir Putin quickly changed the situation.
First, because the Russian president sent the Wagner group into battle when the traditional army seemed to be struggling.
“These mercenaries allowed the Kremlin to strengthen the front without having to decree a mobilization”, underlines Mark Galeotti, specialist in Russian military questions, on the site of the conservative weekly The Spectator.
Yevgeny Prigozhin was tasked with succeeding where the Ministry of Defense had failed.
And Wagner's mercenaries actually took part in the capture of the cities of Popasna, Sievierodonetsk, and Lysychansk during the offensive that began in late spring 2022 in the Luhansk region.
First successes that seem to have gone to the head of the boss of the mercenary group.
"He is a very sure of himself, who saw an opportunity to seize to gain political influence with Vladimir Putin", underlines Stephen Hall.
A destiny to be built on the political remains of the Minister of Defense, Sergei Choïgou and his right arm, Valeri Guerassimov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces.
"Evgueni Prigojine is suspected of having backstage support for ultranationalist bloggers who began to violently criticize the military choices of the general staff from the summer," notes Joseph Moses.
For this expert, one last element made the confrontation between the Ministry of Defense and the Wagner group inevitable: “The army and the mercenaries both have a constant need for ammunition.”
A commodity that is becoming increasingly rare in this phase of attrition warfare [strategy aimed at depleting the resources of the adversary, editor's note].
Everything is decided in Bakhmout for Prigojine
Bakhmout was to be the crowning achievement of Yevgueni Prigojine's strategy.
Banking on the fact that the Ukrainians would not throw all their forces into the battle for a city of questionable strategic importance, “he thought that the city would fall quickly”, notes Stephen Hall.
Nothing happened, and the fighting has been raging there for more than nine months.
Difficulties which “provided arguments to the Ministry of Defense to try to convince Vladimir Putin to let go of Evgueni Prigojine”, assures Stephen Hall.
For this political scientist, the boss of Wagner has made a mistake by embarking on a large-scale struggle for influence: “He forgot that even if he has known Vladimir Putin for a long time, he has never been one of his intimates while Sergei Shoigu, for example, has always gravitated within the first circle of power”.
In other words, the Russian president will lend a more attentive ear to the criticisms of his defense minister, especially if these concern a Yevgueni Prigojine whose military aura is beginning to weaken.
>> To read: The battle of Bakhmout, symbolic or strategic issue?
The Minister of Defense also seems determined to transform Bakhmout into a tomb for Wagner's mercenaries.
“The traditional army uses them as cannon fodder in the districts of the city where the fighting is fiercest in order to reduce the number of mercenaries and thus reduce the military weight of Yevgueni Prigojine”, writes Mark Galeotti.
If Bakhmout remains in the hands of the Ukrainians, the boss of the Wagner group “will have lost a lot of credibility, and will have to very quickly win a significant military victory elsewhere in Ukraine or risk seeing his political ambitions reduced to nothing”, estimates Stephen Hall.
Yevgueni Prigojine flirted with the idea of becoming defense minister or even creating his own political party.
Above all, he will have to “give ground to other private militias which have multiplied in recent months, such as the 'patriots' of Sergei Choigou”, stresses Joseph Moses.
This perspective of a landscape where private militias would take more and more space was reinforced by the adoption, on Tuesday March 14, of a law in the Duma aimed at prohibiting criticism of these paramilitary groups.
But the dice are not yet cast for Evgueni Prigojine.
On the one hand, because even if his image as a winner has taken a hit, "his reputation is not yet as bad as that of the general staff, which remains the main target of criticism", recalls Joseph Moses.
And these mercenaries are still very useful for the Kremlin: "The death of mercenaries from this group is politically more acceptable to Putin than that of ordinary soldiers", assures this expert.
On the other hand, “the Wagner group continues to gain ground in Bakhmout”, recalls this military expert.
And if, in the end, his mercenaries succeed in taking the city, “Evgueni Prigojine will be able to argue that he has won the battle not only against the Ukrainians, but also despite all the obstacles that the Ministry of Defense has placed on his road,” concludes Joseph Moses.
Bakhmout could thus become a more important battle for the political future of Russia than for the outcome of the war.
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