2023-05-05 14:01:26
The head of the Russian Wagner Group published a video today, Friday, in which he appears standing in a field strewn with corpses and shouting insults, accusing senior defense leaders of being responsible for the losses incurred by his group’s fighters in Ukraine.
And the head of the Russian private military Wagner Group (Yevgeny Prigozhin) announced today, Friday, that he will 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 standing behind.
He justified his decision by refusing his men to suffer unnecessary and unjustified losses without ammunition, and said, “We are waiting for an order to leave Bakhmut, we will remain in Bakhmut until the ninth of the month, after that we will go to the rear camps,” explaining that his group will hand over its positions to the army.
And in the event that Wagner’s fighters withdraw from Bakhmut, where they are fighting on the front lines, this will put the Russian army in a critical position at a time when the Kiev forces are completing their preparations to launch a large-scale attack, which they confirm is imminent.
For months, Prigozhin has been accusing the Russian General Staff of not supplying his group with enough ammunition to prevent it from achieving a victory in Bakhmut that the regular army cannot.
An unprecedented escalation
Prigozhin escalated his attack to an unprecedented level today, Friday, in two video clips published by his media apparatus, and he said in one of the clips, “We were about to take control of Bakhmut before May 9,” the date Moscow celebrated victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.
The man appeared screaming angrily, pointing the camera at dozens of blood-stained corpses, which he said were of Wagner fighters, and his press service published the video clip in which Safir’s voice covered the insults.
“Where are my shells?”
In another sharp-tongued video posted Friday night, Prigozhin specifically attacked Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov.
“They are Wagner’s men,” Prigozhin said in the video as he wandered among dozens of corpses. “They were killed today so you can poison us behind your desks!” He shouted angrily to Shoigu and Gerasimov, “Where are my damned shells?!”.
Wagner’s “heavy” losses
Wagner suffered heavy losses in recent months in its attempt to control Bakhmut, and the group occupied a large part of the city, but was unable to seize the last Ukrainian sites.
It was not clear whether the statements of the head of the group reflected a firm decision or were just a warning, as the head of Wagner often makes hasty statements under the influence of anger, and then retracts them.
Analysts saw that his recent attacks on the army aim to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to urge him to intervene on his behalf.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response to journalists’ questions that he had “seen these statements in the media,” refusing to comment on them.
The Kremlin denies that there is any tension in the ranks of the Russian forces, but Prigozhin’s statements may prove the opposite.
Prigozhin accuses the army leadership of not supplying it with the ammunition it needs in order to prolong the battle of Bakhmut and weaken Wagner’s forces to prevent them from achieving a victory that would expose the setbacks suffered by the army in recent months.
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