1/ Yevgeny Prigozhin's business empire is rapidly being dismantled. It's lost its contract to provide (rotten, infected, adulterated) food to the Russian army, and his media empire is shutting down. Thousands of his staff have been made redundant, many with no severance pay. ⬇️
2/ Until Prigozhin's mutiny last month, his Concord Group was the Russian military's biggest food supplier. The Russian government paid it 845 billion rubles ($9.6 billion) under a contract with the Russian MOD's procurement arm, Voentorg. That has now been cancelled.
3/ Concord also has the dubious title of being the MOD's most-sued contractor, with 560 lawsuits being filed in 2022 alone for supplying the Russian army with food contaminated with bacteria, insects and worms, and scams such as substituted ingredients.
4/ "Look out, news" (ON) reports that Concord's many holding companies have been "working intermittently since 23 June and have been waiting for inspections, destroying documents in the meantime by order of the management."
5/ "It was expected that the entire document flow should have been handed over to the new owners by 15 July. But yesterday the employees were told that because of the breakdown of the contract between Voentorg and Concord they would be dismissed."
6/ Concord's several thousand employees – who were engaged in feeding the military and supplying food to hospitals and to the occupied areas of Ukraine – have been dismissed with 'resignation letters', which are communicated strictly verbally, and no severance pay.
7/ It's unclear what impact Concord's demise will have on military food logistics in occupied Ukraine. The situation is already reportedly very bad, with frontline troops complaining they lack food and water. It's unlikely that Concord's services can be replaced immediately.
8/ Similarly, Prigozhin's Patriot Media Group has shut down virtually overnight. Four sources have told ON that employees of the group's outlets, which included RIA FAN, Nevskie Novosti, Ekonomika Segodnya and other publications, were told to stop working from 3pm on 30 June.
9/ A now-former employee of one of the publications says the editor-in-chief announced their dismissal and promised they would get their remaining salaries and severance pay. The employees of his media companies reportedly went out to celebrate a "wake" afterwards.
10/ One employee says: "We've been working remotely all week. The website was blocked, a couple of days later the VK page was blocked, we were left with only the Telegram channel. We've been told since Monday that maybe we'll be unblocked and we'll keep working.
11/ "And today they wrote [that we are closing down] in the work chat. Wages will be paid." /end
1/ Russian front-line hospitals are experiencing acute shortages of personnel and supplies. Only officers are reportedly evacuated to Russia, with ordinary soldiers being treated without anaesthesia or medications. Volunteers are providing most of the medical supplies. ⬇️
2/ The Insider reports on the calamitous state of Russian front-line medical care in the occupied regions of Ukraine. Simply getting to a medical facility is hard enough – many have complained that the wounded are not being evacuated and are often left to die.
3/ Wounded soldiers are supposed to be stabilised and sent to the nearest military field hospital, where they are triaged. They are then meant to be sent to regional hospitals in the occupied territories or in Russia, depending on the severity of their injuries.
1/ Angry mobilised Russians have recorded themselves in a verbal confrontation with an officer. It's a rare insight into the relationship between the soldiers facing Ukraine's counter-offensive and their frequently absent commanders, whom they say have abandoned them to die. ⬇️
2/ The men are reportedly from the 1486th Leningrad Regiment. They are serving on the Bakhmut flanks, from which videos have emerged about their treatment as "cannon fodder" and their lack of ammunition or training. This recording says the same things.
3/ In the recording, the discussion goes as follows. An officer (O) named Sergey is apparently informing a soldier (S) about the death of a popular man in their unit during the Ukrainian counter-offensive. The soldier is very angry about how the men have been treated:
1/ A leaked document shows that the Russian Ministry of Defence was notified prior to the mutiny that Wagner would be moving equipment across Russia. However, this was reportedly cover for a plan to capture and remove Defence Minister Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Gerasimov.
2/ According to the document, which has been published by the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, Wagner Group representative Andrey Troshev informed the MOD leadership that Wagner would be moving its equipment to storage and transfer sites in Russia between 21 June – 5 July.
3/ A VChK-OGPU source says that Russian Air Force Chief Sergey Surovikin, who is reportedly himself an honorary Wagner member, acted as a guarantor of Wagner's good conduct in the operation. However, Surovokin is said to have been aware of the planned mutiny.
1/ Russia's deepening economic problems have resulted in a collapse in commodities earnings, drastic cuts in federal government spending and rail freight yards being clogged with thousands of Chinese shipping containers that are sitting empty for want of goods to export. ⬇️
2/ The Moscow Times reports that Russian government statistics are showing a dire eocnomic situation. As of 27 May, the Ministry of Finance had spent 48% of the allocated budget but had only collected 40% of forecast revenues. The deficit stands at 134% of the planned amount.
3/ The government has cut its spending for June to 44 billion rubles a day ($498 million), half the average for the previous five months. Federal tax collections have fallen by 19% compared to the same period in 2022.
1/ Russian law forbids conscripts being sent to fight abroad. However, the Russian army seems to have found a loophole: it's reportedly sending hundreds of conscripts to fight in Ukraine as part of punishment battalions, in a revival of a Stalin-era practice.
2/ A Russian Defence Ministry source has told SOTA that conscripts who have been sent to penal battalions (shtrafbats) for committing criminal offences, and whose term of conscription has not yet come to an end, are being sent to fight in Ukraine.
3/ Little attention is said to be paid to such conscripts because they are serving time in a 'closed unit' – a penal battalion – for committing crimes under military law or by decision of a military court as an alternative to imprisoning them.
1/ According to the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel yesterday, a source told it that Yevgeny Prigozhin "really is in St. Petersburg. He says he doesn't give a fuck..." This appears to have been confirmed today. (h/t @revishvilig) ⬇️
2/ VChK-OGPU adds that according to a source, "Prigozhin has been given until 1 July to close all his affairs in Russia and take his property. (This was part of the mutiny arrangements) From the 1st, searches and seizure of assets will begin."
3/ "Taking advantage of this opportunity, they are preparing in the near future to take out all available cash of the Wagner PMC to Africa and Belarus."
Prigozhin reportedly believes he's come out on top from the mutiny, despite his enforced exile. A VChK-OGPU source says: