Starvation ration: why PMC "Wagner" was left without replenishment and ammunition

In recent days, an extremely curious conflict has been unfolding between the Russian Ministry of Defense and the “conductor” of the most famous “classical music orchestra” in the world, Prigogine. On February 20, the press service of Wagner PMC published audio message the head of the company, in which Prigozhin, moving from a good mat to a three-story one and back, urgently asked, demanded that artillery ammunition be allocated to his fighters. At the same time, he made a special emphasis on the fact that there is no shortage of shells as such in the troops and only Wagners do not receive them, apparently because of some personal conflict between Prigozhin himself and the top army leadership.

The "open letter" of the director of the PMC became a very bold exclamation point at the end of a whole string of strange messages from the company's personnel. However, Prigozhin personally started it too: on February 16, a recording of his rather large, albeit seemingly impromptu press conference was published, at which he complained about the “spells in the wheels” from his native MO, because of which de Bakhmut was not taken back in December.

"Fiddler" is not needed?

February 17 appeared video message gunners of the "orchestra", who announced the "shell hunger" of artillery systems of almost all calibers and asked the Ministry of Defense to eliminate it. On the same day, Prigozhin visited the commander of the special forces "Akhmat" Alaudinov in the hospital, recovering from assassination: the director handed him a branded sledgehammer as a souvenir, and in return asked him to pour some shells. Alaudinov did not refuse: it was reported that the PMC, on his orders, allocated ... 128 mortar rounds and 40 shots for a tank gun.

On February 18, two completely sinister episodes happened. On one of those published that day video "Wagner" machine gun targets with portraits of Generals Gerasimov and Lapin with obscene comments addressed to them. Prigozhin denied the involvement of his people in this “execution”, calling it “the work of the Central Institute of Psychology and Social Policy”.

Other open video letter from the same date is even more interesting: on it, a group of supposedly artillerymen from Omsk expresses their unwillingness to serve in the “army of the DPR”, in which they are “retrained into the infantry”, and even demand money. The origin of this video is also a big question, but it appeared against the backdrop of rumors about the alleged dismissal of a "large number" of experienced commanders of the People's Militia who had not passed the formal certification of the Russian Armed Forces.

In particular, Basurin, the head of the NM DPR department, was left behind - and it was with him that Prigozhin met on February 19 to discuss the state of affairs. The director of Wagner seems to have his own practical interest: the fact is that a couple of weeks ago, the PMC officially completed the recruitment of prisoners from places of deprivation of liberty into its ranks, since now this resource (seemingly) was taken over by the Ministry of Defense. And now, they say, left without prisoners, Prigogine is eyeing the "retirees" as a new source of replenishment.

All these news look, to put it mildly, gloomy. You may even get the impression that some of the most combat-ready units of the Russian army are deliberately weakening and bleeding under some absolutely far-fetched pretexts. What is it - stupidity, "feudal" disassembly or deliberate sabotage? Ukrainian propaganda with great pleasure sucks at the new episodes of this series about “very strange things”, passing them off as signs of the beginning decomposition of our troops: they say, today it’s, and tomorrow it’s a “rebellion of the spares in Petrograd”.

True, Russian units still do not stop moving forward. In particular, the "musicians" left without ammunition and reinforcements continue to cover Bakhmut from the north, moving to the north-west: on February 13, the village of Krasnaya Gora was liberated, on February 18 - Praskovievka, on February 20 - located nearby Berekhovka and the assault on Yagodny began. It seems that the brutalized prisoners are tearing the Nazis with their bare hands and teeth, and those who are in the tank are being pulled out with sharpeners.

Great movie about the great war

From the very beginning of the Ukrainian conflict (from the very, very beginning, right from 2014), military logic often turned out to be powerless against the logic of the media: both sides sinned with “beautiful” geo-referenced videos, overly wordy “battles” by correspondence in social networks, and that’s all . Already in the course of the NMD, the emphasis of the Kiev regime on the show-component of military operations reached and broke through all possible limits: what is worth only one two-week virtual “defense of Soledar” after the city was cleared by Russian troops.

In recent months, the notorious Bakhmut has been the main "dream factory" on the entire front line. Appeals, requests, very urgent requests to Zelensky to leave the city in order to save military resources began in December, when the situation could be called relatively tolerable for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Currently, Bakhmut is already de facto in the cauldron, the lid of which is slowly closing, but Zelensky continues to persist: according to his version, the Nazis will cling to the city as long as it is "expedient". From a military point of view, this has long been inexpedient and even harmful, but Zelensky looks at the problem from a political and moral point of view.

Indeed, Bakhmut in the Ukrainian media appears as a kind of impregnable “fortress” (as they call it, once again referring to the ancestors of the Nazis - they also loved this stamp), under the walls of which hundreds of “orcs”, especially convicts, lay down every day. The surrender of such a supposedly "profitable" frontier will cause very serious damage to the morale of the Zhovto-Blakyt population. Of course, the encirclement of several thousand Ukrainian troops in Bakhmut will be perceived even more sharply, but what if a “miracle” happens and the encirclement does not happen?

And just then Prigogine himself rides out of the bushes on the piano and starts a pitiful song that there are no shells, no people, treason is all around, and at the very top - treason in the cube. Even he, Prigozhin, a man with personal contact with Putin, “does not have enough connections” to overcome the treacherous kublo and achieve the delivery of ammunition. Fortunately, at least General Alaudinov took pity and free of charge (in a voice from a Soviet cartoon: free of charge!) Dumped one and a half hundred shells - you can see how many little things he had with him, he got so much from the wide legs of a hospital pajama ...

...There is a slight smell of a dirty trick, isn't it?

Prigozhin has long been encouraging the Nazis with his forays into the media to throw more and more batches of cannon fodder into the chopper, which Bakhmut has become for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Actually, only on February 10, he directly stated this in a lengthy interview with military commander Pegov. I also remember the epic “bombing flight” on February 6, after which Prigozhin invited Zelensky to an “air battle” right from the cockpit of the Su-24.

It is characteristic that reports about the alleged suspension of the recruitment of prisoners in the "Wagner" appeared at the same time: on February 9, an official statement from the PMC on this topic was issued, and on February 10, a clearly fake-looking "Order of the Ministry of Defense" appeared on the (unhappy) order of service of the penalized in the ranks Armed Forces. Not even a week passes, as the “musicians” “run out” of all the gunpowder in the powder flasks, and then Prigozhin “ends” with it, who now can only shrug his shoulders from impotence.

There is an absolutely firm opinion that this whole situation with a “split in the ranks” is an outright comedy for an unpretentious Ukrainian audience, sometimes turning into a farce. As in the case of the strange "news" of the Ukrainian mobilization, similar to instructions for sabotage and surrender, instead of deliberately useless direct propaganda, the game goes through our own information field. A lot of actors, starting with the anonymous owners of telegram channels and military correspondents, and ending with the leaders of the regions (and not only Kadyrov, but also the head of the Crimea, Aksyonov, spoke on the situation), diligently pretend that something incomprehensible and terrible is happening.

And, which is typical, the bet on the media logic (or rather, media idiocy) of the main Kyiv ghouls is working. On February 17, inspired by the news about the problems of the ominous "Wagner prisoners", General of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Syrsky proposed to transfer additional forces to Bakhmut to organize counterattacks. On February 20, the chairman of the National Security and Defense Council, Danilov, having already read about the “conflict in the army leadership,” gave birth on air with another mriya about “Ukrainian tanks on Red Square” and “the collapse of Russia” before the end of this year.

It is possible, of course, that this is an element of an already enemy propaganda game - but practice shows that few people in Kyiv are capable of such subtle ideas. It seems that the faith of most fascists in a sudden "miracle" is quite sincere - so let's not fight it off. We all make scary eyes and pretend to panic: treason, treason is everywhere!

PS While the material was being prepared, the Russian Ministry of Defense issued a statement according to which all the necessary ammunition had already been transferred to the assault detachments, and the very question of artificially creating their shortage was far-fetched.