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The leader of Wagner’s army from Russia, has said that his army, which is currently concentrated in the city of Bakhmut, Ukraine, has no ammunition, and if they are forced to retreat, everything in the front will collapse.
Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Friday that his units had “practically surrounded Bakhmut,” where fighting had intensified in the past week after months of attrition, with Russian forces attacking from three sides.
Wagner is often seen operating autonomously from the regular army, or even as a rival, and in a video published over the weekend, Prigozhin complained that the ammunition promised by Moscow had not been delivered.
“If Wagner withdraws from Bakhmut now, the whole front will collapse,” Prigozhin said. “The situation will not be sweet for all military formations that protect Russian interests.”
Reuters could not independently verify when and where the video was recorded. It was published not on the Telegram channel of Prigozhin’s regular press service, but on a channel that had been associated with Wagner and spread news about Prigozhin.
In his usual channel, Prigozhin also mentioned the lack of ammunition, saying on Sunday: “Now, we are trying to find out the reason: Is it just ordinary bureaucracy, or treason?”
The timing of Prigozhin’s video is unclear
Prigozhin has regularly criticized the military hierarchy and in recent months accused Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and others of “treason” for withholding ammunition. Shoigu has visited troops in Ukraine to present medals and meet commanders and was in the eastern city of Mariupol, captured by Russian forces last year after a month-long siege.
In a nearly four-minute video published on the Wagner Orchestra Telegram channel on Friday, Prigozhin said his troops were worried that Moscow wanted to set them up as potential scapegoats if Russia lost the war.
“If we back down, we will go down in history forever as people who have taken a major step towards losing the war,” he said.
“This is exactly the problem with ‘ammunition starvation’.”
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Prigozhin delivers his monologue in what appears to be a bunker, with dim lighting casting heavy shadows on the wall behind him.
He said his troops would wonder if they were “setting themselves up” to be defeated by higher-ups or people “higher up.”
Former Russian nationalist rebel commander Igor Girkin, a key opponent of Prigozhin, said without citing evidence that the video released over the weekend had been recorded at the height of the row, about two weeks ago.
Prigozhin has used the war to become a public figure in Russia, and strong signs have emerged in recent months that the Kremlin wants to clip his wings after he began feuding with the defense establishment.
The Ministry of Defense said last month that it was “absolutely not true” that Wagner was starved of ammunition.
Bakhmut has ‘symbolic value’: US Defense Secretary
The battle for Bakhmut has been raging for seven months. A Russian victory in the city, which had a population of around 70,000 before the war but is now in ruins, would give Moscow its first major prize in the costly winter offensive.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Monday that if Ukrainian forces decided to reposition west of Bakhmut, he would not consider it a strategic setback.
“I think it’s more symbolic value than strategic and operational value,” Austin told reporters during a visit to Jordan.
Austin also noted a “fissure” between Wagner and the Russian military.
“I would say Wagner’s forces have been slightly more effective than the Russian forces… Having said that, we have not seen an exemplary performance from the Russian forces.”
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Ukraine’s military said early Monday that its forces had repelled 95 Russian attacks in the Bakhmut region in the previous day.
“The situation in Bakhmut can be described as critical,” Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said in a video commentary.
North of Bakhmut, Russian troops advanced to the town of Bilohorivka, just outside the Luhansk region, and destroyed several settlements in the direction of Kupiansk and Lyman, the Ukrainian military said.
In the south, the Ukrainian military said Russian forces were making preparations for an attack on the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, destroying dozens of towns and villages including the city of Kherson, causing civilian casualties.
A woman and two children were killed by a Russian mortar bomb in a village in the Kherson region, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office said.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, said one person was injured in the rubble on Monday after Russian forces fired three missiles near the town of Novy Oskol.
Russian units disobey orders: unconfirmed reports
Belgorod borders Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and has been repeatedly attacked since the beginning of the Russian invasion. Ukraine has almost never claimed responsibility for attacks on Russia.
Near Vuhledar, southwest of the Russian-held city of Donetsk, Ukraine said senior officers of Russia’s 155th Brigade, which Kyiv said had suffered heavy losses, refused to obey orders to attack.
“Brigade leaders and senior officers refuse to proceed with a new senseless attack as demanded by an unskilled commander – to attack well-defended Ukrainian positions with little protection or preparation,” the Ukrainian military said in a statement.
Military analyst Zhdanov said two Russian “Cossack” units known as Steppe and Tiger had expressed frustration with their commanders and refused to take part in the new attack on the mountaintop city.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
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