While the Ukrainian counter-offensive seems to be just around the corner, the head of the mercenaries in the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, sounds the alarm about his forces in Ukraine.
He says they are suffering heavy losses in Bakhmut and threatens to pull their forces out of the city.
The leader wants more ammunition and believes the Kremlin sends them far too little. This is revealed in a video interview with the Russian war blogger Semjon Pegov which was published on Friday, writes the Danish news agency Ritzau.
Expert reacts
Prigozhin reportedly says that they are piling thousands of corpses every day and that the losses are five times greater than they need to be.
Niklas Rendboe, former researcher at the Danish Defense Academy and expert on the Wagner group, reacts to the fact that the Wagner boss, who has often been very optimistic about Russia’s chances in the war, now says the opposite.
He particularly highlights an essay that Prigozhin wrote a short time ago in which he argued that Russia may have an interest in losing big in order to get the forces together before a revenge action, writes Danish TV 2.
– It’s embarrassing. There’s certainly nothing he can’t sweep under the rug. He also knows very well that he is also communicating to a Western audience, says Rendboe Danish TV 2.
As Dagbladet wrote yesterday, Prigozjin also spoke very negatively about the Wagner group’s future in the same interview.
Rendboe believes that Prigozhin is preparing not to lose face and that he is engaging in a rhetorical exercise that is not necessarily very credible.
– Will disappear
Needs ammo
Thought smithy Institute for the Study of War also mentions Prigozhin’s sensational interview in his daily report on the war in Ukraine.
– If our ammunition shortage is not resolved, we will be forced – in order not to flee later like cowardly rats – to either retreat or die, he says.
He is said to have contacted Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, and asked for new supplies as soon as possible.
2023-04-30 01:10:21
#embarrassing
