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A heated debate among Russian military bloggers over the deaths of dozens of Wagner Group mercenaries in Mali highlights discord and desperation within the group, according to a researcher who studies Russian military propaganda.
The arguments, which appear on a blog network called “Z-channels,” were sparked by an ambush in the desert last week that nearly wiped out a Wagner Group patrol, according to Ivan Filippov, the author of the “All Quiet on the Western Front” Telegram channel.
In an interview with VOA Russian correspondent Alexey Gorbachev, Filippov described Channel Z as “a vast network … run by propagandists, self-proclaimed ‘war correspondents,’ and others who sincerely support Russian aggression.”
According to independent Russian media, the blogs began to appear on the Telegram messaging app after Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Medusa.
Many Z channels have links to Wagner and support Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Small rebellion In 2023, he died in a plane crash along with the group’s co-founder and commander, Dmitry Utkin.
Shortly after Prigozhin’s death, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Ministry of Defense to take over the Wagner unit and officially make it part of the military.
Filippov said some “Z writers” were harshly critical of Wagner’s new commander, arguing that poor decision-making led to the ambush and killing of its scouts in Mali. They estimated that between 20 and 80 Wagner personnel were killed by Tuareg separatists, in what was the group’s worst defeat in Africa.
“And one of the largest military Z channels, ‘Rybar’, with more than a million subscribers, wrote that the ‘Wagnerites’ ignored security measures and sent a team of three armored vehicles and dozens of people to a place where, according to them, there were more than 1,000 militants,” Filippov said.
“The important point is that among the dead was the administrator of a fairly important military Z channel, which was closely linked to Wagner, the Gray Zone channel,” he added.
Current Time TV, a Russian-language television and digital network led by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and in partnership with Voice of America, wrote in its Telegram channel: Daily News On July 29, Nikita Fedyanin, codenamed Bely, was the administrator of the Gray Zone Telegram channel who was killed in the fighting in Mali.
Filippov believes that the loss of Fejanin and the “Gray Zone” is significant because the channel plays a leading role in the ecosystem of the “Z” channel.
“It is a pro-war channel whose authors were directly involved in the war and wish victory to Russian weapons,” he told VOA. “But it is one of the Z channels that reports heavily and openly on the problems and losses of the Russian army, which is very valuable for research because Grayzone can regularly find topics that other channels avoid.”
“It’s important to understand that the Z space is structured in such a way that there are certain topics that people are afraid to write about, and everyone is waiting to see who will write first, and then (the flood of information) starts.”
Current Time also reported in its July 29 daily newsletter that the fighting in Mali on July 25-26 claimed the life of “one of the most prominent commanders of the Wagner PMC, Anton Yelizarov, aka Lotus.”
However, it added that “sources Claiming to be arrested And it has been exchanged.”
Filippov told VOA that many people discussing the deaths of Wagner fighters in Mali blame the group’s military defeat in Mali on the new command.
“They say that the deterioration of the situation in Mali is related to Utkin’s departure, that the army is in chaos, and that the quality of command, the amount of funds, the quality of equipment and many other aspects have declined sharply,” Filippov said.
He said that the “Z writers” looked back to Wagner’s “golden age” under Utkin and Prigozhin, while “now in power is ‘Lotus’, whom many of them consider an incompetent leader”.
Wagner’s devotion to Prigozhin and Utkin was on full display when Z-bloggers launched a campaign asking volunteers to create superhero-style avatars and emojis glorifying their late bosses.
this United Nations It says that under the leadership of Prigozhin and Utkin, the Wagner Group committed atrocities that may constitute war crimes while fighting on behalf of Russia in Syria, Africa, and Ukraine.
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VOA News
VOA provides news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated 326 million listeners each week. Stories marked “VOA News” are written by VOA journalists and may include information from wire service reports.
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