The US Department of Treasury will designate Russia’s Wagner Group PMC, a quasi-official mercenary organization run by Vladimir Putin’s crony Yevgeny Prigozhin, as a “transnational criminal organization,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby announced Friday. This move was previewed nearly two months ago; see Putin’s War, Week 40. Winter Is Coming, and It Is Looking Like Finland in 1939.

Wagner Group has been the go-to organization for Russia’s military operations in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. Now, the Wagner Group is creating headlines for itself and its chieftain in the meatgrinder around Bakhmut, Ukraine (you can read more about that battle in the last half-dozen of my updates).

The offense Wagner Group committed that got it labeled as a transnational criminal organization was buying munitions from North Korea in violation of all kinds of sanctions by all sorts of people.

Wagner Group has most recently made headlines in western press for:

• Wagner Group chieftain Prigozhin visiting Russian prisons and making a personal recruiting pitch: serve in Ukraine for six months and have your record cleared. Kirby said of the 50,000 Wagner Group personnel deployed to Ukraine, 40,000 are essentially paroled felons.
• Distributing a video of a Wagner trooper who had surrendered to the Ukrainians with the intent of defecting…and was sent back to Russia by Ukraine as part of a prisoner swap…being executed by having his head smashed by a sledgehammer. Prigozhin himself promoted the video and awarded commemorative sledgehammers to the units he visited. Read Putin’s War, Week 38. The Lines Clarify and Everyone Is Getting Ready for the Next Phase for more details
• Publicly criticizing Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff Valery Gerasimov as incompetent, insinuating that one or more of them might be gay (NTTAWWT, at least in our military).

The Russian social media accounts try to portray Wagner Group as something like SEAL Team Six. The fact is that they really aren’t very good at anything when measured against a NATO standard. Most people first heard of them when American air power and artillery killed a few hundred of them in Syria (Three Hundred Dead and Wounded Russians Are a Reminder of US Airpower in Syria and The Mystery of the Dead Russian Mercenaries in Syria Deepens). Whatever the Wagner Group troops lack in tactical ability, they make up for with the utmost brutality. You can find videos of them beating Syrian prisoners to death with sledgehammers and, in one instance, suspending a prisoner by his ankles and sawing him in half vertically with a chainsaw.

While Wagner Group may be the most effective segment of the Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, that is not a high bar to step over. They use WWII NKVD-style “barrier” units to motivate reluctant assault troops by shooting them if they retreat. A recent video has emerged of them using WWI-style charges to try and overrun Ukrainian positions. The ground they gain is at a high price, but they are using expendable manpower, so no one cares. These gains have given Prigozhin the ability to insinuate himself into the highest levels of military leadership.

If the sanctions allowed Tier One SOF groups to scour the globe for Wagner Group leaders, I’d say this was significant. But that isn’t the case. The sanctions themselves aren’t very different from the 2017 sanctions imposed on Wagner Group for its role in the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine (read the Treasury Department description of the “transnational criminal organization” sanctions at the link). Prigozhin has been under sanctions for some years, and you might recall that he was the guy who humiliated Robert Mueller’s goobers in a federal courtroom (so he might not be all bad); read Mueller’s Team Continues Their Humiliation at the Hands of a Russian Oligarch.

The best explanation of this action, at least in my opinion, given the flimsy nature of the allegations, is an attempt by the US government, in general, and the Defense Department, in particular, to aggravate the disaffection between the Russian Armed Forces and Wagner Group. More specifically, to put Shoigu/Gerasimov and Prigozhin at each other’s throats. Kirby hinted as much in the briefing.

We are seeing indications, including in intelligence, that tensions between Wagner and the Russian Defense Ministry are increasing. Wagner is becoming a rival power center to the Russian military and other Russian ministries. Publicly, Prigozhin and his fighters have criticized Russian generals and defense officials for their performance in Ukraine.

Wagner Group depends on the Russian Armed Forces for artillery and air support. However, most of their attacks in Ukraine are without the benefit of artillery fire because the Russian Army won’t cooperate with them. The non-cooperation is probably due to what I’d imagine is the Army’s contempt for a force that is 80% convicts and because Prigozhin has a public relations operation that pointedly contrasts the successes of the Wagner Group with the failures of the Russian Army.

Three weeks ago, Kirby pointed out that Wagner Group was the only Russian unit gaining ground in Ukraine (Putin’s War, Week 46. Putin Shakes up the Army Command, Prigozhin Shows How It’s Done, and Western Tanks for Ukraine Are on the Way). In that update, I speculated:

Wagner Group head Prigozhin has made no secret of the fact that he considers the Russian Army command to be less than competent. So, it is hard to see this statement from the Pentagon as anything other than an attempt to sow discord among the Russian High Command, Putin, and Prigozhin.

NEW: Russia's paramilitary Wagner Group is advancing at a faster rate than almost any unit in the Russian military in Ukraine: Pentagon

Wagner is particularly involved in the 5-month fight over the Donbas town of Bakhmut, where 80 percent or more of the pre-war populace has fled

— Jack Detsch (@JackDetsch) January 6, 2023

Wagner Group has also opened swanky, new office spaces in a St. Petersburg high-rise (Putin’s War, Week 38. The Lines Clarify and Everyone Is Getting Ready for the Next Phase) and is holding art exhibitions.

Yesterday I attended the opening of an art exhibition in St Petersburg Wagner Center — a “co-working hub” and “innovations centre” opened in St Petersburg by the same men who brought you decapitations and sledgehammer executions. I know, don’t ask. Just read on… pic.twitter.com/oHzD02uNGK

— Oliver Carroll (@olliecarroll) January 21, 2023

On the one hand, the Defense Department is puffing up Prigozhin and Wagner at the expense of the Russian Armed Forces. But on the other hand, it designates the Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organization. This potentially makes any company providing Wagner Group with clothing, helmets, food, or anything subject to having foreign assets frozen. In addition, it makes it much more difficult for Prigozhin to deal as a peer with the Russian military leadership.

If this operation is successful, it could either force Wagner Group out of Ukraine and remove Prigozhin as a military power broker in Putin’s inner circle or result in the Russian Armed Forces absorbing Wagner Group and still forcing Prigozhin to the sidelines. Even if Prigozhin survives the power struggle, the animosity between him and the Russian military leadership will limit the combat effectiveness of his unit.

Prigozhin, at least publicly, is taking it all in stride.

Yevgeny Prigozhin (owner of Wagner „musicians“) on the possibility of recognizing the Wagner PMC as an international criminal organization: "Finally, now PMC Wagner & the Americans are colleagues.Our relationship can now be called "relationship sorting amongst the criminal clans“ pic.twitter.com/riwp1rxidz

— Anam Cara (@AnamOxana) January 20, 2023

We’ll see how it works out for him.