Compensation paid to the families of dead Wagner Group fighters appears to be playing havoc with Russia’s war economy.
A payment of 5 million rubles (about $60,000) is given to the relatives of mercenaries killed battling Ukrainian forces for Vladimir Putin, per the German Marshall Fund.
In an audio comment published last month by his company Concorde, Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said the families received “black cash” payments.
Indeed, several women told Bloomberg they went to pickup points to collect the cash payments. They said they were advised not to put the money in bank accounts to avoid tax or other scrutiny.
Prigozhin said in a Telegram interview, reported by Al Jazeera, that Wagner lost 20,000 fighters in the monthslong battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut that it spearheaded.
The payments for so many deaths would equal 100 billion rubles ($1.2 billion) of cash flowing into Russia’s financial system.
This may have contributed to Russia’s economy becoming increasingly cash-based. According to Central Bank data, the amount of cash not held by banks in circulation has risen in the last year.
It also could suggest falling confidence in the stability of Russian banks, particularly as interest rates that stand at 7.5% should attract rising deposits.
The growing “shadow economy” also reduces the amount of tax revenue that’s needed to fund Putin’s war.
In January, the Daily Beast reported that some families had yet to receive payments from Wagner. The outlet cited an anonymous Wagner fighter who told the VchK-OGPu Telegram channel in January that the group didn’t pay out in the case of an execution, or if there was “no body.”
Wagner now appears to be attempting a military coup against Putin, with British intelligence suggesting that its forces were “almost certain” to enter Moscow.
Saturday’s events follow weeks of criticism from Prigozhin of Putin and other senior Kremlin figures. Western intel suggests this is a result of his failure to receive a reward after helping to capture Bakhmut.
Source : BusinessInsider
