“The Chief of the General Staff and the Minister of Defense are handing out commands right and left, that the Wagner PMC should not receive ammunition, they are also not helping with air transport,” Prigozhin claimed in a recording posted by his press service on Telegram. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia’s General Staff, accusing them of “treason” for their alleged failures to support and supply the Wagner group in Ukraine. Earlier this week, Prigozhin escalated his spat with Shoigu and Gen. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has become a remote and isolated leader since the Covid-19 pandemic, has no clear successor, and some political insiders speculated that some opportunistic upstart – a Prigozhin, for instance – might sense a potential opening or chance to build a power base independent of Putin.Ĭertainly, Prigozhin’s outbursts would have been unthinkable before February 24, 2022, when open criticism of the defense leadership by a military contractor would not have been tolerated. In one recent recording, Prigozhin railed against unnamed “functionaries” – a likely swipe against Shoigu – who “have breakfast, lunch and dinner on golden dishes and send your daughters, granddaughters and whoevers to vacation in Dubai, showing no shame at all, at the very same time that Russian soldiers are dying at the front.”Ī poster displaying a Russian soldier with the slogan "Glory to the Heroes of Russia" decorates a street near the "PMC Wagner Centre" in Saint Petersburg, Russia, pictured in November 2022. One of Prigozhin’s chief rivals has been Shoigu, who had clashed with the businessman over military contracts given to and then taken from one of the oligarch’s enterprises. His unexpected rise prompted speculation about possible elite infighting in Moscow as Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine sputtered. Petersburg troll farm that the US government has sanctioned for interfering in American elections. He even began to acknowledge his role in Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 US presidential election, admitting that he had founded the Internet Research Agency, the notorious St. Prigozhin – a canny political entrepreneur without any official government position – began openly taking credit for Wagner’s efforts to secure some territorial gains, particularly in the battles raging around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. 'Just to survive': Wagner fighters recount the horrors of battle in eastern UkraineĪll that changed after Russia’s military suffered humiliating setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine. While the activities of Wagner were well documented – the mercenaries had appeared on battlefields in Syria and Libya as well as on training missions in the Central African Republic – the Russian government more or less denied its existence. “They’re going home.”īut Prigozhin’s latest stunt appeared to raise the ante in the oligarch’s confrontation with Russia’s defense establishment, and with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.īefore Russia’s Februinvasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin was a shadowy figure. “Their contracts are over,” he deadpanned. What was the rationale behind this ghoulish spectacle? Prigozhin already has a reputation for callousness and cruelty: Late last year, around the New Year’s holiday, he visited a morgue stacked with the body bags of dead Wagner soldiers, many of whom had been recruited from prisons with a promise of amnesty. “Most likely, the train has started moving … we are told that the main papers have already been signed.” “Today at 6 am (local) it was reported that shipment of ammunition begins,” he said. In a message and voice note Thursday, Prigozhin said a shipment of ammunition was now on its way to his forces. So mothers, wives and children will get their bodies.”Īpparently, the message got through to someone. There should have been five times fewer of them. “These are the guys who died yesterday due to the so-called ‘shell starvation’. “This is one of the gathering places of the dead,” Prigozhin said. Prigozhin posted a photo showing dozens of dead Wagner fighters, blaming "shell starvation" and lack of ammo supplies.
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