The head of Wagner’s troops has announced that he will be withdrawing his fighters from Bakhmut – even though, according to Prigozhin, the Ukrainian city has been almost completely conquered. But the urgently needed ammunition is not coming from Russia.
The city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine has been heavily contested for months. The Wagner group took part in the war there on behalf of Russia and was probably able to push the Ukrainian troops further and further out of the city. But now the head of the group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is threatening Moscow with the withdrawal of his fighters. It is not certain how many Wagner members are actually fighting in and around Bachmut.
Specifically, Prigozhin mentions the date of May 10 in a message distributed on Telegram. Then the Wagner group would withdraw from Bachmut if supplies of ammunition were not delivered from Russia by then. “Without ammunition, my boys will not suffer unnecessarily high casualties,” emphasized Prigozhin. Without urgently needed ammunition, his fighters face a “senseless death”.
According to Prigozhin’s statements, Bakhmut has now almost completely conquered all of 45 square kilometers except for an area of 2.5 square kilometers. This information cannot be independently verified. But the Wagner boss warned the Kremlin: “If you don’t give us grenades, you won’t rob us of victory, you’ll rob the Russian people of victory.”
conflicting parties as a source
Information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict parties cannot be directly checked by an independent body in the current situation.
Prigozhin attacked Secretary of Defense and chief of staff
It is not the first time that Prigozhin has openly taken a confrontational course with the Russian military leadership. Just a few hours before the announcement that he wanted to withdraw from Bachmut, the Wagner boss had also published a video via Telegram that was supposed to show him in front of fallen members of his fighter squads. Prigozhin addressed Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valeri Gerasimov with clear and probably partly insulting words.
“Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where’s my damn ammunition?” Prigozhin yells at the camera in the video. He emphasizes that his fighters came to the front in Ukraine “as volunteers” and that Shoigu and Gerasimov would “go to hell” for their failure to deliver ammunition.
No comment from the Kremlin
Only a brief statement came from the Kremlin in response to Prigozhin’s telegram contributions. “Of course we saw it in the media. But I can’t comment on it because it affects the course of the military special operation,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. In Russia it is forbidden to speak of a war against Ukraine. Instead, Moscow uses the term “special operations”.
Should Prigozhin actually carry out the threatened withdrawal of his troops, it would happen just a day later, after Russia celebrates the anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany on May 9th. Traditionally, the celebrations also include a large military parade.