Wagner Group owner Yevgeny Prigozhin has likely lost access to recruiting fighters in Russian prisons because of his ongoing disputes with Russia’s Defence Ministry leadership, the UK Ministry of Defence said in an intelligence update on March 13, 2023.
Half of convicts likely casualties
About half of the prisoners that Wagner recruited and deployed in Ukraine have likely become casualties, according to the update, as reported by Euromaidan Press.
Prigozhin has highly likely redirected Wagner’s recruitment efforts towards other categories of Russian citizens, UK intelligence said. Since early March, Wagner has sought recruits at sports centres in at least 40 locations across Russia, and its representatives have visited Moscow high schools, handing out questionnaires titled “application of a young warrior” to collect contact details of pupils.
Smaller operations likely
UK intelligence assessed that the new initiatives were unlikely to make up for the loss of the convict recruitment pipeline. If the ban on recruiting prisoners endures, Prigozhin will likely be forced to reduce the scale or intensity of Wagner’s operations in Ukraine, the update said.
Feud with the military
Wagner has led Russia’s assault on Bakhmut, relying heavily on convicts promised pardons in exchange for six months of service at the front. Prigozhin has publicly accused Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov of starving his forces of ammunition, and said in February that Wagner had stopped recruiting prisoners.
Sources
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