There is no need for a new wave of mobilization after Wagner forces left the Ukrainian front, Moscow announced, as Prigozhin’s influence in Russia keeps dwindling after the Wagner-linked Patriot Media is shut down and his frontline catering company loses its contract with the defense ministry.
As Moscow tries to deal with the fallout of Wagner’s failed coup attempt last month, many suspected that the gap left by the removal of tens of thousands of experienced mercenaries from the Ukrainian front will be filled with a fresh wave of conscripts from across Russia. But according to the Kremlin, there’s no need to worry.
“There is no threat of decreased combat potential,” Andrei Kartapolov, head of the State Duma Defense Committee told TASS on Monday, July 3rd, saying that most Wagner soldiers were withdrawn from the frontlines before the mutiny anyway. “There is a planned recruitment of contracted military personnel,” Kartapolov said, but “there is no need for [general] mobilization today or in the near future.”
Pro-Wagner voices go silent
Meanwhile, Moscow keeps chipping away at the exiled Wagner chief’s last remaining media and business strongholds in Russia. The greatest blow to Prigozhin’s influence is undoubtedly forcing his giant media enterprise, Patriot Media, to shut down.
Although the Russian government did not outlaw the company altogether, it blocked access to five news outlets owned by Patriot: Ria Fan, Politics Today, Economy Today, Neva News, and People’s News Online, AP wrote Saturday, July 1st. Moscow also announced that it will investigate Prigozhin’s finances, including the almost $2 billion that Wagner and his companies received from Russia over the past year.
A day after the Kremlin’s Friday decision to restrict the Patriot-owned outlets, the director of the company’s largest news site, Ria Fan, came out to announce the decision to “close down and leave the country’s information space.”
Another, separate Prigozhin-owned news site based in St. Petersburg, Nevskiye Novosti, also announced the closure at the same time, showing a targeted push from the Kremlin to get rid of problematic opinions linked to the mutinous oligarch.
The chef’s day off
But media is not everything, as Moscow also took one of Prigozhin’s most lucrative businesses. According to Russian Telegram sources, the Defense Ministry terminated its contract with Prigozhin’s catering company, Concord, which earned the oligarch the “Putin’s Chef” nickname in the past.
Just in the past year, Concord reportedly earned $1.2 billion for providing food for the Russian military taking part in the War in Ukraine.
According to the sources, Concord’s numerous subcontractors have been expecting a change in leadership ever since Wagner’s mutiny began, waiting for inspections and destroying documents. But instead of new owners, Moscow simply terminated its entire contract with the company, leaving several thousand employees without a job.
