March 13 () –
The UK Ministry of Defense believes that the head of the Wagner Group mercenary organization Yevgeni Prigozhin’s ongoing disputes with the Russian authorities have caused him to lose access to prisons, the agency’s main recruitment centre.
For this reason, the British Defense Intelligence service maintains that “it is very likely” that Prigozhin will focus recruitment efforts among free Russian citizens, even reaching secondary schools in Moscow, where information has been distributed about the organization.
Since the beginning of March 2023, the Wagner Group has set up team information stands in sports centers in at least 40 locations in Russia. Britain says that if Prigozhin’s organization has trouble swelling its ranks it will most likely scale back operations in Ukraine.
Likewise, British Intelligence maintains that “it is probable” that half of the prisoners that Wagner sent to Ukraine have died or been injured and sees it difficult for all these new initiatives to compensate for the loss of troops that he was able to recruit in Russian prisons.
In recent weeks, the relationship between Prigozhin and senior Russian Defense Ministry officials appears to have soured, after the former publicly protested delays in ammunition shipments to the front, even going so far as to speak of “betrayal” by the military leadership.
