Ramzan Kadyrov, one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Russian hostilities against Ukraine, wants to follow in the footsteps of the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin and create a group of mercenaries. Yesterday Sunday he announced that when he leaves the Chechnya leadership he plans to found his own private military company.
Kadyrov praised Prigozhin in a message posted on social networks, calling him “our dear brother”, and assured that his Wagner Group has achieved “impressive results” in Ukraine. According to the Chechen, the current situation “has marked a line in the conversations about whether these military companies are necessary.”
Theoretically, mercenary companies are not legally allowed in Russia, but Wagner has been intervening in the shadows since 2014 both in the Ukrainian Donbass and in Syria and several African countries in favor of the interests of the Kremlin. They are currently the battering ram in the Russian attempt to take over the city of Bakhmut.
“I seriously plan, upon completing my work in the service of the state and in order to compete with Prigozhin, to create a private military company. I think it will work,” Kadyrov announced on his Telegram channel.
The Chechen leader pointed out that Wagner’s attackers are achieving the intended objective, something that, he pointed out, can be confirmed by the Chechen Ajmat units that are also fighting in the neighboring country and, like Wagner, do so autonomously from the Russian army.
Both Kadyrov and Prigozhin are close allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Despite this closeness to the head of state, both have been very critical of the command of the army, thus creating a tacit alliance between them.
However, analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) have detected that of late they have not been as united in their differences towards the Russian Defense Ministry.
After taking the small town of Soledar, near Bakhmut, a month ago Prigozhin accused the ministry of “trying to steal” the victory from the Wagner Group. In February he assured that there was no communication between Wagner and the Russian army. He then visited the commander of the Chechen Akhmat brigades, Apta Alaudinov, in the hospital in what the ISW considered an attempt to “get support” from Kadyrov.
The Chechen boss, however, has stood out. Last Saturday, February 18, he declared his “excellent relations” with the Ministry of Defense and noted that there are no disagreements between them. “Any appointment that the high command makes, any task that they entrust, all of their decisions, we support them,” he emphasized.
From the Kremlin, they have denied that there is a conflict between the Ministry of Defense and the founder of Wagner. They are, said his spokeswoman, Dimitri Peskov, manipulations by “information adversaries.”
However, Putin’s press officer also noted that sometimes “our own friends behave in such a way that enemies are not needed.”
