2023-05-05 19:21:45
Russian pro-war social media channels said on Thursday that Colonel Mikhail Mizintsev, the former deputy defense minister of Russia, had “joined the Wagner Group” as a “vice president”.
In two videos posted on Telegram by war correspondent Aleksandr Simonov, Mizintsev, dressed in combat fatigues bearing a Wagner insignia, visits a training camp and tours Russian positions in the eastern Ukrainian town of Bakhmut.
The appearance of the footage coincided with the issuance of two video statements by the founder of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who angrily repeated his long-standing accusations that the Defense Ministry was stingy with ammunition, jealous of its success.
Prigozhin has repeatedly accused the army’s mainstream, including Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, of incompetence but singled out individual commanders for praise.
And on April 29, the day following the announcement of Mezentsev’s dismissal from the Ministry of Defense, Prigozhin’s press service said that he had made an offer to be appointed colonel.
It was Mizintsev who masterminded the siege of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in the first months of the war last year and was appointed deputy defense minister in charge of logistics last September.
Wagner’s closely watched Telegram channel, Gray Zone, said Mizintsev was “not the first, and obviously not the last general who was out of his place amid bureaucracy and sycophancy”.
Among the bodies of his dead.. A video of Wagner’s president attacking the Russian Defense Minister and threatening to withdraw
The head of the Russian Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced on Friday that he would withdraw his fighters, starting from May 10, from the city of Bakhmut, the center of the fighting in eastern Ukraine, due to a shortage of ammunition, which he accused the army of being behind.
The European Union imposed sanctions on Mizintsev in June, calling him the “butcher of Mariupol” for his role in the siege that devastated the city.
Prigozhin, in a video statement, praised Mizintsev but did not confirm his appointment.
In response to a question by Archyde.com, Prigozhin said that such matters in wartime are classified.
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