1/ The bitter feud between Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov appears to have originated in Syria, as an interesting personal account by Prigozhin of the February 2018 Battle of Khasham illustrates. ⬇️
2/ The battle took place when Wagner attempted to seize a US-held oil refinery but was summarily wiped out by American air power. It's been discussed before by a Wagner soldier who was in the battle. Prigozhin explains what happened at higher levels.
3/ Prigozhin claims that the refinery was actually held by ISIS, with "Americans in their ranks" helping them. He says that there were periodic exchanges of fire between ISIS and Wagner, who were aiming to block the US/Kurdish advance into ISIS-held south-eastern Syria.
4/ Prigozhin says he proposed to capture the road leading along the Euphrates from Khsham to the Iraqi border. "On 2 February 2018, I discussed this plan with the Chief of General Staff and then with officers on the ground who were involved in the operation."
5/ "The operation to take control of southeast Syria was planned for the night of 7-8 February, with access to the Conoco plant and further along the road up to the border with Iraq. And once the security zone was established, Syrian army units could be launched from the south."
6/ Prigozhin was confident he had ground superiority over the US and ISIS, but he needed the Russian military to provide "air support and flawless air defences" to protect his ground force.
7/ He says "we were promised that two pairs of SU-35 fighters would be on duty at all times, flying in figures of eights over the Euphrates. So that if enemy aircraft came out, they could attack them and prevent them from hitting the moving infantry.
8/ "It was also promised that all means of air defense would be in operation: S-300, Pantsirs [air defence systems] and other available means of air defence and aviation, which at that time the Wagner PMC did not have."
9/ Prigozhin also says that the Russian MOD promised that they would warn Wagner if there was a threat of any "force majeure".
The operation was launched at 18:00 on 7 February, and at 23:45 the Wagner force attempted to storm the "ISIS" (US) positions.
10/ Then, as Prigozhin relates, the US unleashed the full range of its airpower – drones, attack helicopters, gunships and bombers, which devastated the attacking force and inflicted "a large number of dead and wounded". The attack was abandoned.
11/ Prigozhin says, without explaining why it happened, that he subsequently learned that just as the operation was being launched, Gerasimov ordered the Russian military to stand down, ground its aircraft and turn off the air defence systems.
12/ "According to information that I received from the dispatchers, it was ordered not to inform the Wagner PMC about these measures and subsequently not to contact them in any way."
13/ The Americans had seen Wagner begin advancing from 18:00 and had repeatedly challenged the Russian military to stand them down. When the Russian military disowned the Wagnerites, the US counter-attacked in full force. However, Prigozhin says, Wagner was never informed.
14/ "At 18:00, most of the military commanders left their workplace, went on vacation or even, more accurately, fled.
15/ "And when [Wagner tried to find them] after the shelling started, it turned out that some of them had locked themselves in their wagons, while others had changed their overnight location altogether, so that they could not be reached."
16/ "At 03:00 in the morning we finally managed to break into the RF Armed Forces headquarters to speak to the officer on duty.
17/ "There was a single colonel at the desk, who told us that he would try to resolve the issue so that the shelling would stop and the Wagner PMC fighters could remove the bodies of their slain comrades.
18/ "On 9 February I flew urgently to Moscow and tried to get an appointment with Shoigu to find out what really happened. I wanted to find out why all the agreements had fallen apart and why the tragedy of 8 February had occurred.
19/ "The Minister of Defence refused to receive me. I signed up on the 10th, the 11th and so on ad infinitum, but he had no time to talk to me. Then I caught him at a reception in the Kremlin, where I took advantage of my opportunity.
20/ "I approached him with a request: "Can I discuss with you the situation that occurred on 8 February near Deir ez-Zor?" He turned, calmly and arrogantly replied: “You wanted to be a hero? They were heroic. All the heroes are now here in this hall."
21/ "Here he gestured to those around him in expensive suits – "And you are just confused." That was the end of the conversation."
22/ The VChK-OGPU Telegram channel adds some additional context which also helps to explain the close relationship between Prigozhin and Russian Air Force chief Sergey Surovikin, who according to the Dossier Center was already an honorary Wagner member.
23/ According to a VChK-OGPU source, Prigozhin's plan of attack at Khsham was "actively lobbied for by Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force Surovikin."
24/ "But on 7 February it became known in the General Staff that this plan was a gamble of the Wagner PMC, aimed at obtaining access to the oil field in the interests of the business team of Gennady Timchenko, which by that time already included both Prigozhin and Surovikin.
25/ (Timchenko is an oil billionaire who was the sixth richest man in Russia as of March 2022. A long-time Putin ally, he has been sanctioned over the invasion of Ukraine. He is also reportedly one of the main backers of the Redut mercenary group, which is fighting in Ukraine.)
26/ According to the source, "Gerasimov was furious that the oligarchs were trying to make the armed forces into a servant of their business interests.
27/ "Surovikin's attempts to change Gerasimov's mind were unsuccessful and the only thing that the head of the armed forces was allowed to do was to allocate two planes to take deceased Wagner members to Russia.
28/ "Nevertheless, to this day, for his services in the Syrian campaign of the Russian Armed Forces, Sergey Surovikin receives dividends from the business projects in Syria of the Stroytransgaz joint stock company, controlled by Gennady Timchenko.
29/ "This passive income scheme is operated by Mikhail Khryapov, a friend of the Surovikin family and a member of the Stroytransgaz board of directors." /end
1/ Wounded Russian soldiers are being ordered to crawl into battle if they cannot walk. "You’re still meat, no one gives a shit about you," they have been told by their commander, according to relatives. The men are now missing, and their relatives want Vladimir Putin to help. ⬇️
2/ A number of female relatives of missing men have posted an 'appeal to the Tsar' video on social media. They are complaining about what has happened to their loved ones and appeal personally to Putin to intervene on their behalf against the Russian bureaucracy.
3/ Their account helps to explain why so many crippled Russian soldiers have recently been filmed on the battlefield. It appears to be the result of chronic shortages of manpower and casual brutality, with men being used as "meat probes" in minefields.
1/ The conviction of former General Ivan Popov has produced a vehement reaction from Russian warbloggers, who denounce it as unjustified. Although he has been sentenced to five years' imprisonment and loss of rank, Popov may yet go back to fight again in Ukraine. ⬇️
2/ Popov has been in detention since May 2024 on charges of fraudulently appropriating and selling 1,700 tons of rolled metal structures intended for use in building defensive structures on the front line. He argued that it was scrap metal which he sold to aid his troops.
3/ He was also charged with falsification of official documents relating to the metal parts. His former deputy, the late Lieutenant General Oleg Tsokov, was also implicated. A businessman, Sergei Moiseyev, was sentenced to four years in prison and fined 400,000 rubles ($4,800).
1/ A catastrophic explosion at a Russian arsenal may have taken place while an ammunition train was being loaded or unloaded. Images from the depot show ammunition stacked in the open, while its bunkers seem to have been poorly protected.
2/ Triangulation of videos showing the initial explosion suggests that it took place at the very centre of the arsenal near Kirzhach (coordinates 56.101466125876044, 38.74729263195981), where satellite images show a rail loading/unloading facility.
3/ New satellite images released today show that the most heavily impacted area of the arsenal is centred on the rail loading/unloading facility, which may support the hypothesis of an accident with an ammunition train.
1/ Ukrainians are scamming millions of rubles a day from Russians and directing the proceeds to fund the Ukrainian armed forces, according to Russian investigators. They accuse the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) of being behind the scam operations. ⬇️
2/ Russian journalist and warblogger Anastasia Kashevarova has posted on her Telegram channel the results of an investigation by SNOS Call Centre, a group which is dedicated to countering Ukrainian scam operations against Russian citizens.
3/ The scams are said to be organised like regular businesses, complete with offices, employees, HR managers and corporate policies. Kashevarova cites the example of a concern called Strongcall, which operates in Kyiv and several other Ukrainian cities.
1/ Two Russian policemen who were sent to Ukraine after being found guilty of killing two teenage girls with an axe have both died there, according to Russian sources. ⬇️
2/ The two men, Dmitry Istomin and Yevgeny Inkin, committed the double murder in the Selenginsky District of Buryatia in 2002, but were not caught until 2019.
3/ 17-year-old Evgenia Shekunova and 18-year-old Ekaterina Pateyuk were found stripped to their underwear and chopped up with an axe at an area called Klyukvennaya Pad, two weeks after going missing.
1/ The 51st GRAU arsenal near Moscow, which exploded spectacularly today, was the target of a massive theft in 2017 which 646 million rubles ($7.9m) out of a 1.3 billion ruble ($16m) budget were stolen from a modernisation programme. ⬇️
2/ These photos show the interior of the arsenal in happier times; the drone footage above was filmed in 2017 during a press tour. The Russian authorities say that the explosion was due to "safety violations" and are setting up a commission of inquiry to investigate it.
3/ In October 2017, the FSB opened a criminal investigation into Spetsmontazh LLC, a company which had been given a 1.3 billion ruble contract by the Russian Ministry of Defence in 2013 to carry out construction and maintenance work at the arsenal. It was paid in advance.