Service members of pro-Russian troops stand next to a howitzer during an exhibition of Ukrainian army hardware and weapons left in Lysychansk
(Picture: REUTERS)Vladimir Putin’s “private army” of mercenaries is being used to reinforce Russia’s front-line forces as the Kremlin faces troop shortfalls and casualties.
In its latest intelligence briefing on the conflict in Ukraine, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said on Monday that Russia has become reliant on the Wagner Group, which has played what it said was a “central role” in recent battles in the Donbas including the capture of Popasna and Lysyschansk.
“This fighting has inflicted heavy casualties on the group,” the British military chiefs said.
The assessment came as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed he had fired the head of the country’s security service and its prosecutor general, citing hundreds of criminal proceedings into treason and collaboration by people within their departments.
“In particular, more than 60 employees of the prosecutor’s office and the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) have remained in the occupied territory and work against our state,” Mr Zelensky said.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 18 July 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) July 18, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/FLMyNFy4J2
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/F4p4UkX1KT
Meanwhile EU foreign ministers were meeting on Monday in Brussels to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and will hear from Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba, amid growing pressure to impose more sanctions on Russia.
Although Russia is facing a potential counter offensive from Ukraine in the south of the country, Putin’s forces continue to press for victory in the Donbas industrial region in the east.
Despite making steady but slow progress in the Donbas, the MoD said the level of troop losses being sustained by Russia means the Wagner Group was having to lower recruitment standards.
It said the Wagner Group was “hiring convicts and formerly blacklisted individuals”, adding that “very limited training” was being made available to new recruits.
The MoD said: “This will highly likely impact on the future operational effectiveness of the group and will reduce its value as a prop to the regular Russian forces.”
Britain’s military intelligence chiefs also said that Russia’s military morale is likely to have been hit by military honours awarded to Wagner’s head Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who was recently been made a Hero of the Russian Federation for the group’s performance in the Luhansk region of the Donbas.
The MoD said it came at a time “when a number of very senior Russian military commanders are being replaced” and was “likely to exacerbate grievances between the military and Wagner. It is also likely to impact negatively on Russian military morale”.
On Sunday it was reported that Russian missiles hit industrial facilities at Mykolaiv, a key shipbuilding centre in southern Ukraine.
Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said the missiles struck an industrial and infrastructure facility. Mykolaiv has faced regular Russian missile strikes in recent weeks as the Russians have sought to soften Ukrainian defences.
The Russian military has declared a goal to cut off Ukraine's entire Black Sea coast all the way to the Romanian border.
If successful, such an effort would deal a crushing blow to the Ukrainian economy and trade, and allow Moscow to secure a land bridge to Moldova's separatist region of Transnistria, which hosts a Russian military base.
For now, the Russian military has focused on trying to take control of Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland of the Donbas, where the most capable and well-equipped Ukrainian forces are located.
Ukraine says its forces still retain control of two small villages in the Luhansk region, one of two provinces that make up the Donbas, and are fending off Russian attempts to advance deeper into the second one, the Donetsk region.
The Ukrainian military's General Staff said Sunday that Ukrainian troops thwarted Russian attempts to advance toward Sloviansk, the key Ukrainian stronghold in Donetsk, and attacks elsewhere in the region.
Yet Russian officials are urging their troops to produce even more territorial gains. During a visit to the front lines Saturday, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu issued an order “to further intensify the actions of units in all operational areas”.
