Thread by @SamRamani2

Leaked US intelligence documents reveal more about the feud between the Wagner Group and Russian Defence Ministry

Some highlights /1

The Russian Defence Ministry was clearly concerned about its inability to fight an information war with Yevgeny Prigozhin

Short of a Kremlin ban on Prigozhin sharing thoughts on Telegram or speaking to pro-war bloggers, it had no viable options /2

The Russian Defence Ministry also claimed that it did not give weapons to Wagner directly

The Wagner Group got weapons from a task force in Bakhmut

The Defence Ministry doesn't know how much ammo Wagner got and also is shielding itself from breaking Russian law on PMCs /3

Valery Gerasimov tried to stop munitions supplies and military transport flights to the Wagner Group's Rostov-on-Don headquarters

This happened in early February, as tensions soared over Surovikin's ouster /4

By mid-February, the FSB confirmed that the Wagner Group had received munitions but likely less than promised

The Russian Defence Ministry caved to Prigozhin's pressure and offered to double munitions supply to Wagner /5

Vladimir Putin also got directly involved in the dispute between Sergei Shoigu and Yevgeny Prigozhin in late February

He held a joint meeting with both Shoigu and Prigozhin /6

Prigozhin tried to bring Putin onside by urging him to allow prison recruitments again, offering to have Wagner train forces and promising to bring PMCs from Afghanistan to Wagner

Putin sided with Shoigu and none of these initiatives worked out /7

These leaks show that Prigozhin's claims of shell hunger and Defence Ministry sabotage/non-responsiveness have some validity

But they also show that the Putin-Prigozhin relationship is weaker than it looks and that Gerasimov was really trying to deplete Wagner in Ukraine /END