This is why Wagner has now been placed under the executive operational direction of Surovikin.
I was under an impression that Surovikin was made responsible for "making Prigozhin happy", i.e. making sure Wagner gets all ammo they need, not the other way around. Something like what Keit posted:
Another important note is that Surovikin's role (at least officially) is a go in between Wagner and MoD. This is also a "win" for Prigozhin, because he likes and respects Surovikin.
So on the surface it seems that Prigozhin got what he wanted. Apparenly this happened after "Prigozhin's problem" was discussed "at the very top". Meaning, that this probably came from Putin himself.
For "supervising" Wagner, or for ensuring a better coordination between the army and the "musicians", or for reinforcing Wagner's role and position, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev was assigned as Utkin's deputy. That's the General who personally led the troops during siege of Mariupol and was dubbed "the butcher of Mariupol" by the so called collective West (
WaPo <-- following the link can be dangerous to your health).
Генерал-полковник Михаил Мизинцев перешел в ЧВК Вагнер, видео на полигоне, беседа с инструкторами, должность заместителя Дмитрия Уткина
amalantra.ru
Transl:
Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, who last week was dismissed from the post of Deputy Minister of Defence, became one of the deputies of the Wagner PMC under the command of Dmitry Utkin himself. It became known that Mikhail Mizintsev has moved to the PMC "Wagner" from a report of military correspondent Alexander Simonov [...].
As one of the Russian Deputy Defence Ministers, Mikhail Mizintsev was in charge of the technical support and supply of the troops and was appointed to this position on 22 September 2022. Prior to that, he commanded the National Defence Control Centre of Russia.
After Sergei Shoigu dismissed Mikhail Mizintsev at the end of April 2023, the head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said that a decision had been made at the council of commanders to offer the retired Colonel General the position of Dmitry Utkin's Deputy.
On 30 April, Yevgeny Prigozhin gave a big interview to military correspondent Semyon Pegov, in which he spoke positively about Mikhail Mizintsev and said that the colonel general was one of the few who constantly came to the front line and tried to solve the problems with ammunition.
General Mizintsev who had been frequently at the front lines, and has been fired on the principle that he was uncooperative. And so Mizintsev, who was kicked out from his position, he went around the fighters and he saw what was going on with ammunition. He got involved and helped absolutely everyone.
After Mikhail Mizintsev joined the Wagner PMC, he immediately arrived at the so-called ground for additional training of attacking soldiers, where he discussed with the instructors universal methods of training fighters based on real combat experience.
Especially, the new deputy commander of the Wagner PMC was interested in training fighters to conduct combat operations in urban areas.
At the risk of noting the obvious, it's good to remember that what we can see, including when it comes to politics, in-fighting, particular agendas etc., is like Plato's cave, or like weather phenomena than can be a reflection of battles up there within higher D's: we can see effects in a form of replaced officials, lost battles, seemingly wrong decisions and similar reflections, but a significant part of the whole picture remains hidden. Sometimes there is a leak, often for a reason that not necessarily is to make things a bit more clear. There are various narrations from many sides, cover-ups and what not. But the fact that state agencies, as well as some other groups of interest, compete with each other for funds and influence is no secret.
But let's focus on intelligence agencies now. The same way as the CIA and FBI compete in the US, in Russia that's FSB and GRU who have different interests in some areas. Also, there is a difference in directions each of them seeks to take. When painted with a
very broad brush, it seems that both competing groups represent two alternative geopolitical visions. The GRU group is believed to be 'Eurasianists' and not so much concerned with the 'democratic image' of the country. On the other hand, the FSB group looks more toward the Western elites (let's say, they are 'pro-Atlanticists' hence they find it necessary to maintain a 'democratic veneer'.
One example of a "war" between those two, we could see in the Mikhailov/ Shaltai Boltai (=Humpty Dumpty) case, the tip of the iceberg of which is to be found there:
en.wikipedia.org
‘Alexander’ tells how Shaltai-Boltai, or Humpty Dumpty, terrorised Russian officials for three years, combining hacking, leaking and extortion
www.theguardian.com
They’ve hijacked the Russian prime minister’s Twitter account and attacked the political elite. But they’re also guns-for-hire, collecting private information for a fee. Daniil Turovsky went to Bangkok to meet them
www.theguardian.com
In short, the largest state intelligence agency - the FSB, at the suggestion of "headhunter Mikhailov", was hunting another state intelligence agency - the GRU-GSU. And trophies of those surveillance efforts were transferred to the main American intelligence agency - the CIA. Soon, the GRU got even by striking back in a similar manner.
From TsUR (in Russian) - it's loaded with details and while overall seems pretty good, I cannot verify everything in there, so use your own discernment.
Разоблачение «Шалтая-Болтая» — следствие войны между ФСБ и ГРУ
medium.com
“We simply responded to the FSB for their setups and dirty tricks”
The exposure of "Humpty Dumpty" is a consequence of the war between the FSB and the GRU
In recent years, the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the General Staff of the Russian Federation has suffered failure after failure. Lists of undercover workers are circulating on the Internet, employees are expelled following espionage scandals, high-ranking intelligence officers die under strange circumstances, and the entire leadership of the intelligence service seats under US sanctions. The GRU men attribute this not only to the success of foreign counterintelligence, but also to the subversive activities of their native FSB. Their response to the Chekists, as the Investigation Management Center (TsUR) found out, was the exposure of the Shaltai-Boltai hacker group and its curator, FSB Colonel Sergei Mikhailov. TsUR transmits from the special front line and counts the losses of both sides.
I'm pretty sure that what we can see happening in the SVO framework is
in part just that: years long competition between FSB and GRU. It's a common knowledge that PMC Wagner is associated with the former, and Shoygu/MoD - with the latter. It is also known that back in 2018, after the infamous and tragic Wagner's defeat in Deir ez-Zor, even more secretive company, the "Patriot" PMSC, was created under the patronage of the Russian MoD in order to (i.a.) compete with the Wagner PMC; and it seems they do, and successfully.
en.wikipedia.org
For Russian readers, see for example:
ЧВК "Патриот"
Lastly, it also seems to me that there are some in the highest ranks who have Russia's best interest at heart and do whatever is humanly possible to navigate what at times becomes political "roaring forties", throwing a piece of meat here and there just to keep the most hungry ghosts in line. Without it, the descending path of Russia that had started back in the early 1990's would have taken the country to the very bottom by now, with no way up in sight. Which is not the case.
Maybe in light of that it will be a bit easier to see, at least to a tiny extent, through the veil and make some sense of hard to understand events.
FWIW
www.rt.com
9 May, 2023
tass.com
10 MAY, 2023
