Vladimir Putin is determined to continue to use the experience of the fighters of the mercenary group Wagner for the campaign in Ukraine. The president of Russia has instructed one of his former commanders, Andrei Troichev, to organize volunteer units to fight in the current conflict, according to images of a meeting released yesterday Friday by the Kremlin.
Troichev, who is known by the nickname Sedoi (gray-haired, in Russian), was chief of staff of the Wagner Group. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Ria Novosti news agency that Troishev already works at the Ministry of Defense.
“At our last meeting we discussed that you would take care of creating volunteer units capable of carrying out combat missions first of all, of course, in the area of ??the special military operation,” Putin told Troichev, using the official name by which the military intervention against Ukraine that began 19?months ago is known in Russia.
In the meeting, which took place on Thursday in the Kremlin’s premises, the Deputy Minister of Defense, Yunús-Bek Ievkúrov, who in recent months has traveled to several countries where the Wagnerites work, also participated.
The meeting appears to be an attempt by the Kremlin to demonstrate that it has the Wagner Group under control after the failed riot of June 23 and 24. The head of the mercenaries, oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, died along with some of his commanders on August 23 in a plane crash whose causes have not yet been determined.
“You yourself fought for more than a year in that unit. He knows what it is, how it is done, he knows the problems that must be solved in time so that the combat work is solved in the best way”, Putin told him.
A former colonel in the Russian army, Troishev is a decorated veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya and former commander of the rapid reaction force of the Ministry of the Interior SOBR. In 2016, he was awarded the highest Russian medal, the Hero of Russia, for the assault on Palmyra, in Syria, against militants of the Islamic State. Like Putin and Prigozhin, he is a native of Sant.
The Russian president also spoke about social guarantees for those participating in combat missions. He pointed out that the Defensors de la Pátria foundation has been created, in charge of helping veterans and families of dead veterans. “Regardless of the status of each person who performs or has performed combat missions, social guarantees must be absolutely the same for everyone. For the country, for the motherland, the status of a person who has fought and defended the motherland is indifferent,” said Putin, quoted by the Kremlin press service.
A few days after the Wagner mutiny, Putin offered the mercenaries the chance to continue fighting, but suggested that commander Andrei Troishev take over from Prigozhin, the Russian newspaper Kommersant has reported. According to the account of the newspaper RBK, after the proposal many fighters nodded their heads. But Prigozhin, who for years had been considered close to Putin and also attended that meeting, said: “No, the boys do not agree with this decision.”
The rebellion by Prigozhin and his men, in the middle of a war with Ukraine, was the most serious domestic challenge Putin has faced since he took power in Russia on the last day of 1999. According to the chief of the mercenaries, their goal was not to overthrow Putin, but to overthrow the Ministry of Defense, as they demanded the arrest of the minister, Serguei Xoigu, and the chief of staff of the armed forces, Valery Guerassimov.
After Prigozhin’s death, Putin ordered Wagner’s fighters to sign an oath of loyalty to the Russian state, a move Prigozhin had previously opposed.
