Thread by @christogrozev

I keep getting asked what's going to happen with PMC Wagner. My answer usually is "no one knows, not even Prigozhin or Putin", but there are a few things that can be put on the record for the time being, based both on leaks by in-fighting clans, ex-mercs, & phone data (short 🧵)

First, a reminder of the context: at the start of the war, Wagner was not invited to the table. On the assumption of a quick victory for 🇷🇺, generals at MoD and GRU set up their own PMC, both to seize control away from Prigozhin, but also to dip into the (corrupt) funding flows.

The top general who in late 2021 was put in charge of creating the new PMC (variously called Reduta or Zvezda) was Gen. Vladimir Alexeev (yes, the same one who famously sat down to negotiate with Prigozhin on the day of the abortive coup attempt)

Alexeev had recruited Wagner's former "Intelligence chief" and used him as the recruiter for the new, competing PMC. This was Anatoly Karzai, a former Spetznaz lt. colonel who was big in the Russia's bikers' circles.

Naturally, Prigozhin found out about the competing operation and (as reported by two former mercenaries) went to the GRU HQ to confront Alexeev, and threatened his ex-employee Karаziy (typo in name previous tweet) with physical violence .

Karaziy and Alexeev won that battle, but lost the war (literally), as their PMC was decimated in the first days of the war and Prigozhin had to be begged to bring the original Wagner into the war as of end of March 2022.

Back to modern day.. After the final fall-out with Wagner this past June, MoD and GRU tried to recruit as many of Wagner's top commanders and mercenaries into Redut/Zvezda/MoD. However, not a whole lot responded.

The only commander that Alexeev/Karaziy were able to steal away from Wagner after the failed coup was a colonel with callsign Seriy (the grey-ing one). @bellingcat wrote about his role in Wagner, especially in Syria, in 2020: To the (mirror) left of Putin. bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

Troshev is now "the Utkin", or the mil. commander, of Redut. And he is now the target of a character assassination campaign by his former Wagner buddies, bringing back a 2017 incident when he was found passed out in the street with secret Syria maps) fontanka.ru/2017/06/06/021/

However, rather than recruiting mercenaries for fighting in Ukraine, the GRU-controlled Redut is reported to be hiring now primarily for overseals/Africa postings. Wagner-aligned channels are accusing MoD of trying to divert resources to replace Prigozhin in lucrative markets.

So the main conflict between Prigozhin and the MoD appears to mostly on the future of "kuratorstvo" of African/middle-east client states (and resource markets), rather than "how to win the war in Ukraine".

Prigozhin (who offered full-service assistance to his "client states", including spin-doctors, psyops and electoral interference as needed) has created some strong local allegiances in Africa, and won't give them up without a fight.

One thing appears certain: insofar as MoD/GRU need to allocate resources - both focus and 000's of mercenaries - to win over Africa from Prigozhin, this is focus and resources unavailable to them on the ground in Ukraine.

(а correction to Troshev's call sign - Sedoy, not Seriy - the gray-ing one, not the "gray" one).