Putin backs Shoigu in confrontation with Prigozhin

The Washington Post reported that after the conflict with the Russian Defense Ministry began, the department started planning an information war against Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The Ministry of Defense, headed by Sergei Shoigu, did not want to fight Prigozhin alone, but planned to find allies with equal status to fight him.

According to media reports, Prigozhin begged Putin to continue recruiting mercenaries in prisons, training newly mobilized people, and facilitating the recruitment of foreign fighters, especially Afghans.

The leaked documents say that Putin ordered Prigozhin to resolve these issues with the Defense Ministry on his own, effectively siding with his generals.

The Washington Post concludes that Prigozhin was allowed to scold officials because it was in line with Putin's strategy of dividing political territory and the battlefield in Ukraine into separate, competing groups so that no one group becomes too powerful.

The document stated that the information was obtained by intercepting or listening to communications.

• The head of the illegal Wagner PMC said that his mercenaries would hand over their positions in Bakhmut to Ramzan Kadyrov's troops on May 10.