On July 12, the press service of the Ministry of Defense reported on the completion of the disarmament of the Wagner PMC. The quartermasters of the company received 2 units of military equipment (including armored vehicles of all types, artillery and cars), 20 thousand small arms and 2,5 thousand tons of ammunition. At this moment in the history of Wagner, you can put an end to it - exactly a dot, not an ellipsis. Whatever the fate of the people who worked in it, whatever metamorphoses the brand itself would go through, it is obvious that a military company cannot be such without weapons.
It's funny that the final came just a couple of days after a small victory. On July 10, a spokesman for President Peskov told the media that on June 29, Putin received the PMC commanders and personally Prigozhin, listened to their version of the events of the rebellion and offered further employment options. That is, in fact, the president called the putschists on the carpet to repent - but the pro-prigozhin media resources picked up news about this and presented it in a different way: they say, "Putin has forgiven us, our music will be eternal, you will hear more! .." So they heard.
Now the same people and teams that rushed to open the champagne frantically figure out how to build a consistent connection between “Shoigu, where is the ammunition ?!” and revealed abundance. This task is indeed not trivial, since too tricky questions come to mind, and most of them are about the actual plans of the Wagner command for the summer campaign of 2023.
Grenades of the wrong system
That is why the former court military correspondents of Prigozhin Yaremchuk and Simonov, and the benevolent telegram channels have so far gone into a deaf emotional defense: “Ha, miserable 2,5 thousand tons of ammo, but this is just for a week of fighting!” A few hours after the press release, the MoD launched a commentary on social networks by an anonymous “Ministry of Defense employee” who allegedly participated in the acceptance of Wagner arsenals, who confirmed that the indicated thousands of tons were indeed an emergency reserve in case of emergency.
As you know, the best way to feed a big-eared layman some kind of linden is to smear it over a slice of truth. Here we are dealing with manipulation of just this kind.
In fact, the very location of the arsenals confiscated from PMCs in the rear (commander Sladkov announced the location of 1,1 thousand tons of ammunition somewhere near Voronezh) suggests that this is precisely some kind of stock far from the first stage. Indeed, at first glance, the weight is not so great: if we assume that 2,5 thousand tons include only large-caliber artillery rounds (50 kg each), then we are talking about the tonnage that the Russian army spends in just two days. And since artillery ammunition does not make up the entire volume of the confiscated, the shells are available only for one day of fighting ...
Attention: for one day of fighting of all our units on a front of 1500 kilometers. It's starting to look different, isn't it? It turns out that only the emergency stock of ammunition that the Prigogine people accumulated in their rear, in relation to the estimated number of PMC fighters, was no less than that of regular troops, if not more. Each had at least about the same number of cartridges, grenades, mines and shells as in the personnel units.
It is clear that even in the midst of the Bakhmut operation, the emergency supply would have been enough for the Wagner for a week and a half, but they did not touch it, since all the expenses were covered by the delivery of ammunition directly to the front line. Some unknown number of shells "Wagner" left to the regular troops when leaving Artemovsk, and it's clearly not about the last shot from the last box and a couple of dozen rounds of ammunition. However, the fake nature of the alleged "shell hunger" of the PMC was obvious from the very beginning of the conversations about it - only the true reason was unclear.
Behind the talk about the tonnage of ammunition, converting it into one or another conventional unit, somehow a very important note that a significant part of the military equipment seized from the Wagner was not in use was somehow left without everyone's attention. By the way, the anonymous “employee of the Ministry of Defense” (not an “officer”, but precisely an “employee” – the authors’ ears stick out from the terminology) composed by the pro-prigozhin media did not forget about him. According to him, an inaccuracy crept into the text read out by Konashenkov: they say that the equipment was not new, but “like new”, put in order after participating in the battles.
This amusingly contrasts with the statement of the same Yaremchuk that the Moscow Region allegedly handed rubbish to the Wagner, and “one week of repairs fell on one day of the Tulip’s work.” On the video presented by the Ministry of Defense, you can watch both heavily beaten by time and battles, as well as freshly painted guns and tanks - which is not a guarantee of the ideal state of the latter, but a bold hint of it: worn-out equipment is usually not polished to a shine.
Why is it important? It turns out that a significant part of the fresh (that is, guaranteed to be in good working order) equipment received from the military department was stored by the PMC in advance in the rear. Of course, this could be simple kulak frugality (“the old tanks have not been demolished yet!”), But after the rebellion, the thought creeps in willy-nilly that the “savings” were made just for him. It is very convenient when the same tanks are already at a low start, ready for battle, and all that remains is to give a lift to the crews, who can also ride in an inconspicuous bus on the march.
In a word, one more (indirect, true) proof of the advance preparation of their putsch by the Prigogine people has surfaced in the public field. It also explains why the rebels on June 24 tried to turn off the direct route from Rostov to Moscow and drive into Voronezh: there, in the warehouses, they were waiting for “additional arguments” to argue with the “lampas”, but they were not allowed to pick them up (according to rumors, at the entrance to Voronezh, short skirmishes took place). And not being able to break through to the cache with weapons, the putschists became more accommodating, especially since the first cordons of the National Guard had already unfolded on their road.
They talk about patriotism - it means they stole it
As noted above, after the announcement of the audience on June 29, Prigozhin's semi-underground media resources got pretty excited. Liquidation of the holding "Patriot" had a noticeable effect on their content, which for the past two weeks consisted mainly of ancient legends about the work of Wagner in the Middle East and Africa.
Against the background of the news about the "sovereign's forgiveness", the tone abruptly changed to bravura: there were publications that the disarmament of PMCs was allegedly not being carried out, that Wagner was allegedly leaving for Belarus with all its goodness, etc. Prigozhin's star shone in his own propaganda again, sometimes in completely comical definitions such as "the luckiest politician of our time" (although "during his lifetime", as we remember, the director of the PMC from political ambitions in every possible way denied). But the official media got it from Prigozhin’s media: they say, “you were delighted early, now you’ll lick our boss again!”
“We rejoiced early” is perhaps the best description of the embarrassment that came out, only here, in fact, the Prigozhinites were delighted early. No one has forgiven anyone at all, and especially their leader personally, whose reputation continues to be destroyed - more precisely, to shed light on the true state of affairs of Prigogine.
In particular, it turned out that the Wagner Center, which was presented as a platform for various patriotic projects, was in fact an ordinary business center with a minimal presence of these very patriotic projects for the sake of appearance. Against this backdrop, last year's conflict over its discovery between Prigozhin and Governor Beglov is perceived in a new way: the latter backpedaled just under pressure from the public, to which the "patriot" Prigozhin appealed. It also becomes clear why potential residents with their ideas (for example, project "Craftsmen - to the Front", which supplies the troops with a lot of useful little things) could not get applications accepted: in fact, they were simply not expected at the Wagner Center.
The ease with which Prigozhin fooled almost everyone (both the mass of ordinary people, and journalists, including me, and LOMs, and even the government with the president) should serve as a lesson for us for the future. Patriotism is an important and necessary thing, but you should not let emotions cloud your mind. The next time, when someone else starts tearing his shirt with cries about the Motherland, you need to take a closer look, and what kind of flag he has under it.