The head of the Wagner Group, the oligarch Yevgueni Prigozhin, said this Friday that on May 10 his mercenaries will leave the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in the hands of Russian regular troops.
The announcement came hours after publishing a macabre video in which, surrounded by corpses and amidst insults and foul language, he directly accused the Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, of the death of his men for lack of ammunition.
“These are guys from the Wagner private military company, who died today. The blood is still fresh,” says the controversial businessman, close to President Vladimir Putin, at the beginning of the video, published on Telegram by his company’s press service agreed. “Record everything,” he tells the camera operator, pointing ahead as dozens of bloody corpses sprawled on the ground.
“And now listen to me, you dogs,” an angry Prigozhin says, facing the camera directly. “These were someone’s parents and someone’s children. And that scum that does not give us ammunition, dogs, will eat their giblets in hell. We are 70% short of ammunition…! Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where? Are the ammunition there? Look at them, you sons of bitches!”
Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed the “Kremlin cook” because of his contacts with Putin and his catering company’s contracts, has been openly criticizing army generals and the Defense Ministry for months. But never in as violent a way as this time.
“You are sitting, animals, in your beloved clubs. Your children hide from life filming videos for YouTube. You think you are the owners of life and that you have the right to dispose of their lives. You think that if you have the ammunition depots , then you’re entitled to this. By elementary calculation, if you give us the right ammunition, there would be five times fewer dead. They came here as volunteers and they die because you’re eating in your mahogany offices. eating in your mahogany cabinets. you know”, says Prigozhin in his harsh plea.
Hours later, Prigozhin released a statement saying his men are leaving Bakhmut due to “lack of ammunition.”
“I declare on behalf of the Wagner fighters, on behalf of the Wagner command, that on May 10, 2023 we are obliged to transfer positions in the Bakhmut settlement to Defense Ministry units and remove Wagner’s remains to logistic camps.” , explains the businessman.
“I withdraw Wagner’s units from Bakhmut because for lack of ammunition they are condemned to perish senseless.”
Wagner has spearheaded Russia’s attempt to capture Bakhmut since last summer, in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war in Ukraine.
