The Anti-Shoigu Campaign Continues to Escalate

The feudal power struggle is not over - Wagner is still fighting.

So, the executive summary of the latest Shoigu scandal so far: at least 3 underling generals have been fired by Gerasimov and Shoigu over the recent war-profiteering scheme on military uniforms. In short, a well-connected uniform supplier pops up in April, lands a contract for severely overpriced and poor quality uniforms, and then, following public outcry, an investigation is launched by the people who approved the whole scheme in the first place and people further down the food chain are let go to make amends. Classic.

But why is this story getting oxygen breathed into it? Because it is part of a larger struggle between the MoD and its detractors.

Earlier, it was rumored that Wagner had lost its bid for power against Shoigu’s MoD with a failed soft coup on the part of Surovikin and Kadyrov and Prigozhin petering out when met with Putin’s lack of enthusiasm.

Too early to say, I said.

Wagner has had a meteoric rise in popularity and visibility within Russia. Naturally, the status quo is threatened by the group. As such, they have finally started clamping down on Wagner.

Furthermore, the internal feudal squabbling within Russia is only intensifying.

ChrisO_wiki @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and recently demoted General Sergey Surovikin have been defeated in a bid to push out Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, according to a prominent Russian dissident. ⬇️

ChrisO_wiki @ChrisO_wiki

4/ However, Osechkin says, Russia's internal security agency, the FSB, found out about the plot. The trio got cold feet in a classic prisoner's dilemma. "Each of them was not prepared to risk his own well-being for the sake of a jointly successful bright future."

ChrisO_wiki @ChrisO_wiki

8/ Osechkin says that the FSB has for a long time been keeping a file on Prigozhin, who served a lengthy prison sentence for violent crimes in the 1980s. "And as long as there is such kompromat, there is no political future for Prigozhin," Osechkin predicts.

I don’t know whether or not the claims being made are 100% correct.

But we do know that there is a fight happening within the Russian power structures. I have been writing about these feudal squabbles for months now. I can also just Prigozhin’s own broadsides against the Ministry of Defense as well. How to explain that away?

However, assuming that this narrative is true, the fight clearly isn’t over yet because Wagner continues to launch broadsides at the MoD accusing it of, well, pretty much what this blog has been accusing the MoD of as well.

The last public spat was when Wagner soldiers called General Gerasimov a f*ggot for not providing them with enough shells in Bakhmut. The second “front” is now being waged against Shoigu’s inept and corrupt management of military supply reserves for conscripts. Basically, under Shoigu, lots of equipment was sold off on the cheap. Some on the eve of the Not-War.