The Kremlin is seeking to authorise the creation of new paramilitary companies as Russia’s private Wagner military company said it would scale down its operations following a failed mutiny, in an apparent attempt to protect President Vladimir Putin’s regime from another uprising.
A purported recording of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin posted on Telegram yesterday signaled that the mercenary group would pause recruitment and focus on activities in Africa and Belarus, according to the New York Times.
“As long as we don’t experience a shortage in personnel, we don’t plan to carry out a new recruitment campaign,” the recording reportedly said.
Read Also: Russia’s $23b debt: forgiveness step towards Africa’s development
“As soon as the motherland would need to create a new additional group that would be able to defend the interests of our country, we would begin recruiting.”
The new messaging came after the Kremlin-funded paramilitary group staged an armed march toward Moscow in June, a rebellion against the Russian Ministry of Defence for its handling of the war in Ukraine.
Prigozhin turned his forces around after brokering a deal with Russian ally Belarus to end the rebellion in exchange for immunity, and rejected an offer from Putin to let his group continue fighting in Ukraine under new leadership.
Russia had depended on the private military company to bolster its unprovoked invasion under a tacit agreement that allowed for plausible deniability. In the aftermath of the attempted uprising, Putin bizarrely denied the very existence of the unit — which posed the biggest threat to his authoritarian rule since his rise to power in 1999.
As Prigozhin adopted a new non-threatening tone and largely hid from public view, it was revealed that the Kremlin was paving the way for new paramilitary companies to emerge.
Under the language of the measure, the companies would operate at Putin’s behest while being run by regional governors and funded by the Ministry of Defence, according to the report.
Experts say the measures are in direct response to the newly exposed vulnerabilities in the Kremlin’s power — which have also been exposed on the world stage by Russia’s failure to conquer the former Soviet territory Ukraine and squash counteroffensives from the much smaller sovereign nation as its war entered its 18th month.