Why Are Mercenaries Driving Russia’s Best T-90 Tanks?

Russia's best tank, the T-90M, is being operated by a Russian mercenary company.

That would be a new twist in the tale of The Wagner Group, an entity that has been fighting one of the most brutal battles of Russia's wider war on Ukraine.

The first appearance of the Wagner Group in a war zone was in eastern Ukraine. The Wagner Group fronted Russia's intervention in the Libyan and Syrian civil wars and represented Russian mining interests in the Central African Republic.

The Kremlin has a plausible deniability. The risks for widespread human rights and humanitarian law abuses have been warned by the United Nations.

Wagner is a conventional force in Ukraine. Most of the lead battalions were recruited from Russia's prisons. There are tens of thousands of ex-prisoners onWagner's payroll. A fifth of the Russians are in Ukraine.

Since the beginning of the summer, the company has focused on a single town in easternUkraine. There is a ghost town. It doesn't have major transportation infrastructure. It seems to have little military value.

Almost all of its forces in Ukraine have been dedicated to the Bakhmut sector, and many of them have been lost in failed assaults on the Ukrainian garrison.

According to analysts, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former sausage vendor and close associate of Russian president Vladimir Putin, views the Bakhmut battle as an opportunity to prove that the firm can fight.

Prigozhin and Russian generals are enemies. They blamed Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian general staff, when the batteries ran out of bullets.

It is odd that the Russian military and TheWagner Group have close ties. The Russian air force gives logistical support to the air force that flies the Su 24 and Su 25.

Alexander Simonov reported the presence of T-90M tanks in the arsenal around Bakhmut.

Russia's newest and best tank is the T-90 with its 125-millimter gun. The Russians had a lot of T-90s before the war. Modern tanks in cold, wet Russia tend to degrade fast, and 200 were in storage.

The Russian army only had 400 T-90s at the time of the attack on Ukraine. In February, it lost at least 36 tanks in battle. At least 50 of the T-90 inventory belong to Russian army battalions and they are defending a road 50 miles north of Bakhmut.

There is a shortage of the T-90s and they are highly valuable. Why would the Kremlin give any of them to a man who is competing with the Russians for influence in Moscow?

There is no one who can explain the strange relationship between the mercenary company and the army. Those who understand don't say anything.