2023-05-05 08:31:47
The head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has withdrawn his troops from the city of Bakhmut, which has been fought over for months threatened in eastern Ukraine.
The reason is a lack of ammunition, for which the Ministry of Defense in Moscow is to blame, Prigozhin announced on Friday. His mercenary force is therefore preparing to retreat to supply camps on May 10 and hand over their positions to the Russian army.
The conflict between Prigozhin and Shoigu has been smoldering for months
Prigozhin thus exacerbated the conflict with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the military leadership, which had been smoldering for months. Prigozhin now railed once morest the military leadership in Moscow with serious insults.
A video published on Friday shows the 61-year-old in front of numerous bodies lined up in a meadow in the dark. “These are Wagner fighters who were killed today. The blood is still fresh,” says the visibly upset Prigozhin.
Then he addresses Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov directly – and shouts into the camera: “Shoigu, Gerasimov, where the fuck is the ammunition?“
Then he continues: “You beasts, you sit in expensive clubs, your children enjoy life and record YouTube clips.‘ If his troops had sufficient ammunition, the death toll would be five times lower, he claimed.
How the lack of ammunition endangers the Wagner strategy
Indeed, Prigozhin’s fighters depend on artillery support to advance. A lack of ammunition here leads to the collapse of the Wagner strategy:
- The usual practice in Wagner advances is for a group of soldiers to be sent towards the Ukrainian positions.
- The Ukrainians then shoot at the advancing soldiers, revealing their exact position. Russian artillery then fired on the Ukrainian positionwhile a second group of Wagner fighters – the first mostly shot – tries to storm the Ukrainian position.
- Usually several such attempts are necessary to conquer a position. However, if the artillery is missing, the Wagner soldiers keep running into a hail of Ukrainian bullets and die.
In the Russian war of aggression once morest Ukraine, which has been going on for more than 14 months, Prigozhin’s mercenaries, who are notorious for their brutal actions, are currently fighting primarily for the city of Bakhmut. Against the background of the extremely costly battles, power struggles between the Wagner boss and Russia’s regular army are becoming more and more common.
Prigozhin has repeatedly criticized the fact that his men are not being adequately cared for. In the meantime, he even threatened to withdraw them from Bachmut. Also on Thursday, nationalist Russian military bloggers reported that Mikhail Mizintsev, recently sacked as deputy defense minister, has been appointed deputy commander of the Wagner force. However, this has not yet been officially confirmed. (Tsp, Archyde.com, dpa)
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