Global Courant
The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group appears to be threatening an armed uprising against Russia’s military leadership after accusing them of deliberately shooting at his troops on Friday.
Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed in an audio message on Friday that his troops would now punish Russia’s Defense Minister and Chief of the General Staff and order other units to withdraw and not offer resistance.
“There are 25,000 of us and we come to sort things out. … Those who want to join us, it’s time to wrap up this mess,” Prigozhin said.
Founder of the private mercenary group Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin speaks with military personnel during the withdrawal of his troops from Bakhmut and handing over their positions to regular Russian troops, during the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in an unknown location, Russian-controlled Ukraine, in this still image taken from video released June 1, 2023.
Press service of “Concord” via Reuters
Prigozhin also accused Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu of “cowardly fleeing” from Rostov in southern Russia and ordering an attack on Wagner forces.
Prigozhin published a shaky video on Friday showing a shattered group of trees and a burning trench, claiming it was a Wagner camp that was shelled by Russian troops and claiming that many Wagner troops had been killed.
The Russian Defense Ministry has already denounced the video, calling it an “information provocation”.
A Kremlin spokesman said Russian President Vladimir Putin is aware of the video.
“President Putin is aware of all events surrounding Prigozhin. Necessary measures are being taken,” said the spokesman.
Russia’s FSB has issued a statement accusing Prigohzin of calling for “the beginning of an armed civil conflict” in Russia.
The FSB called on Wagner fighters not to follow Prigozhin’s orders and to assist in his arrest.
Prigozhin has denied that this is a “military coup” and calls it a “march for justice”.
“They neglect the lives of soldiers, they forgot the word ‘justice’ and we will return it,” Prigozhin said in the video. “Therefore, those who destroyed our boys today, and tens of thousands of lives of Russian soldiers, will be punished.”
White House National Security Council spokesman Adam Hodge issued a statement saying that counsel is “monitoring the situation and will consult with allies and partners on these developments.”
General Sergey Surovikin, a senior Russian general associated with Prigozhin, gave a video address calling on Wagner fighters to stop their rebellion and return.
Surovikin was appointed top commander of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine between September and January. He was removed in January and replaced by Russia’s Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov, who is trying to overthrow Prigozhin.
This comes hours after Prigozhin launched an extraordinary verbal attack on Russia’s military leadership, saying the invasion of Ukraine was based on lies.
Wagner chief says Russian invasion based on lies
The head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said the Kremlin’s justifications for the invasion of Ukraine are based on lies, in another extraordinary attack on the country’s military and political leaders.
Prigozhin, a key ally of Putin, in a video posted Friday, contradicted public explanations for the war, including Putin’s central claim that the 2022 invasion was necessary to prevent an attack from Ukraine.
Since the start of the war, Putin has portrayed it as a defensive operation to protect Russia. He claimed it was necessary to stop looming large-scale attacks from Ukraine on largely Russian-speaking eastern regions in Donbas, which Russia has occupied since 2014.
Founder of the private mercenary group Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves a cemetery for the burial of a Russian military blogger who was killed in a bombing at a cafe in Saint Petersburg, Moscow, April 8, 2023.
Yulia Morozova/Reuters, File
But in his video address, Prigozhin, whose fighters have played leading roles in the war, said this was not true and there was no immediate risk of an attack from Ukraine.
“The defense ministry is now trying to deceive the society, the president and tell a story that there was insane aggression from Ukraine and they were planning to attack us with the entire NATO bloc,” Prigozhin said.
“The special military operation that started on February 24 started for very different reasons,” he said.
Prigozhin has been in a public feud for months with Russia’s Defense Ministry and its chief Sergey Shoigu, blaming them for Russia’s disastrous prosecution of the war. As Russia has faced growing setbacks in Ukraine, he has become an unexpected, prominent critic of the Russian leadership, using social media to post near-daily video updates berating it as incompetent, but stopping direct criticism of Putin.
Prigozhin also said in Friday’s video that the two goals Putin announced at the start of the war — the “demilitarization” and “de-Nazification” of Ukraine — were “nice stories.”
Instead, he blamed Shoigu, the Defense Ministry and a “clan of oligarchs” for starting the war. He accused Shoigu of seeking glory and wanting to “rob” Ukraine and divide its assets.
Prigozhin’s attacks are extraordinary in Russia, where public criticism of the authorities risks harsh punishment. Since the start of the war last year, criticism of the military leadership has become a criminal offence.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner Group military company, addresses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a video released by Prigozhin Press Service, March 3, 2023, from an unspecified location in Ukraine.
Prigozhin Press Service via AP, File
That has led to speculation among experts about why Prigozhin enjoys such a license. Some observers have suggested that Prigozhin could be speaking with the tacit approval of the Kremlin, which may be trying to shift the blame for the war from Putin by scapegoating other figures such as Shoigu.
Prigozhin did not directly attack Putin in the video, but claimed that the president was being misled by his generals and other figures around him. In reality, however, Putin – not Shoigu – has led the way in making the claims surrounding Donbas and de-Nazification the central justifications of the war, reciting them in his speech declaring his “Special Military Operation”.
The implicit image Prigozhin gave of Putin as weak and unattainable was also noteworthy, suggesting that he was manipulated by a clan of wealthy businessmen around him and lied to by his military. The war, as described by Prigozhin, was not about protecting Russia or resisting NATO expansion, but about greed.
“Oligarchs needed the war,” Prigozhin said. “It was necessary for that clan that practically rules Russia today.” He added that Russia’s “holy war” had become “a racket”.
Prigozhin denounced the Russian military leadership for the massive losses suffered by his troops. He accused Shoigu of eroding the armed forces under Putin through corruption and favoritism, crippling their ability to fight effectively, and then catastrophically ruining the invasion after believing it would be an easy victory.
“There is a total absence of management,” said Prigozhin, who called Shoigu a “weak grandfather.”
“Someone should answer for the lives of those soldiers,” Prigozhin said in Friday’s video.
Prigozhin this week accused the Defense Ministry of presenting yet another falsely optimistic view of how Russia is deflecting Ukraine’s ongoing counter-offensive in southern Ukraine. The Russian military has claimed to have largely thwarted the counter-offensive and inflicted heavy casualties on Ukraine.
Putin himself has proclaimed those alleged successes and reiterated that Ukraine has suffered heavy losses to Western equipment.
But Prigozhin has said Russia’s position is much more difficult as Ukraine launches attacks at two points on the Zaporizhzhia front to the south, and Moscow risks another major defeat.
“Now, today on the ground, the Russian army is retreating to the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions,” Prigozhin said in Friday’s video. He added that Ukrainian troops were advancing “deeper and deeper into our defences” around Bakhmut, which his Wagner forces helped capture weeks ago.
“The leadership of the Defense Ministry thoroughly deceives the president, and the president receives reports that do not correspond in any way to reality,” Prigozhin said.
“Two agendas are formed — one on the ground, the other on the president’s table,” he said.
