Global Courant
The head of the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary group that has witnessed much of Ukraine’s toughest fighting, accused Russia on Friday of killing thousands of fighters and vowed to stop the “evil” of the military leadership. Russia, for its part, announced it would investigate the outspoken leader on charges of “armed mutiny.”
“Those who destroyed our boys, who destroyed the lives of many tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, will be punished. I am not asking anyone to resist,” Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the paramilitary group, said in a series of audio messages on his official Telegram channel.
In the audio, Prigozhin said, without providing evidence, that Russia’s military leadership was responsible for the deaths of 2,000 fighters.
He warned that his troops would move to punish Russia’s defense minister and urged the military not to resist. Prigozhin stated that “this is not an armed uprising, but a march of justice”.
Officials in Russia quickly launched a criminal investigation into Prigozhin “on charges of armed mutiny”. Russian state television interrupted regular programming to announce that Prigozhin’s claims were “bogus and nothing more than provocation”.
Russia’s FSB security service accused Prigozhin of “a stab in the back” by Russian military personnel, accusing him of calling for an armed civil conflict.
The service called on Wagner fighters “not to make irreparable mistakes, to stop violent actions against the Russian people, not to carry out Prigozhin’s criminal and treacherous orders and to take measures to detain him.”
President Vladimir Putin was “informed about all the happenings around Prigozhin. Necessary measures are being taken,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
In the audio messages on Telegram, the chief of the Wagner Group accused Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of ordering a missile attack on Wagner’s field camps in Ukraine, where his soldiers are fighting Ukrainian forces on behalf of Russia.
The claims have not been verified.
An unverified video posted on the telegram channel “Razgruzka Wagner” (Wagner’s battle vest) showed a scene in a forest where small fires were burning and trees seemed to have been violently broken.
The caption read: “A rocket attack was launched on the camps of PMC Wagner. Many casualties. According to eyewitnesses, the attack was carried out from behind, i.e. by the army of the Russian Ministry of Defense.”
Prigozhin vowed to avenge the incident: “There are 25,000 of us and we are going to find out why there is chaos in the country.”
But he also added: “This is not a military coup.”
Prigozhin, whose frequent rants on social media belie his limited role in the war as head of Wagner’s private military company, has been openly accusing Defense Minister and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, of incompetence for months.
On Friday, he first rejected Russia’s main justifications for last February’s invasion of Ukraine in what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation.”
“The war was necessary…so that (Defense Minister Sergei) Shoigu could become a marshal…so that he could get a second ‘Hero’ (of Russia) medal,” Prigozhin said in another audio message. “The war was not necessary to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine.”
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has not gone as expected. Russia has lost more than 100,000 combatants killed or wounded since December, the US estimated earlier this year.
The Russian defense army has been trying to entice military-age men to join in large numbers and avoid the need for another wave of conscription.
The US and other Western countries have provided military aid to Ukraine, including Germany, which has sent Leopard 2 tanks to the country.
Russia has denied the US estimate of 100,000 casualties, including 20,000 dead.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed.
