Due to a lack of ammunition, the commander of the Russian Wagner mercenary force has announced that his troops will leave Bakhmut, Ukraine, on May 10.
Yevgeny Prigozhin made his comments after posting a video of himself standing among the bodies of his fallen comrades and criticizing senior Russian defense officials.
There had been “tens of thousands” of fatalities and injuries, according to Prigozhin.
Despite the city’s dubious strategic relevance, Russia has been attempting to conquer it for months.
The Wagner army has contributed significantly.
More than 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and 80,000 more have been injured in fighting in Ukraine since December, according to US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, who made the claim earlier this week using recently released material. The Wagner group accounted for half of the fatalities.
Prigozhin, 61, blamed the defense ministry directly for his decision to leave Bakhmut in a statement he released on Friday.
Gerasimov! Shoigu! Where is the armament?They came here willingly and gave their lives so that you may fill up in your mahogany offices.
Prigozhin frequently directs his ire at Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff, amid rumors of bitter rivalry inside Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.
In the statement, Prigozhin claimed that the shortage of ammunition was to blame for the “growing in geometrical progression every day” of his Wagner’s casualties.
He emphasized, however, that his troops would remain in place until May 9, which is observed in Russia as Victory Day in World War Two, and would then leave Bakhmut the following day.
In the previously published video, Prigozhin, who was seen addressing his troops, declared that he would “remove the remains of Wagner to logistics camps to lick our wounds” and “transfer positions in the settlement of Bakhmut to units of the defense ministry.”
Without ammo, “my lads will not suffer needless and unfair losses in Bakhmut,” he continued.
One of the recordings that Prigozhin made public on Friday seems to have been shot not far from Bakhmut’s center, at a distance of roughly 2 kilometers (1.2 miles). Satellite images of the area and ground features like bushes and pylons have been matched by the BBC.Being a publicity hound, Prigozhin’s power has recently seen to diminish. He has in the past made threats that he hasn’t kept his word about, then dismissed them as jokes and military satire.
He only recently revealed to a Russian pro-war blogger that Wagner fighters in Bakhmut were on the verge of running out of ammo and required thousands of rounds.
Regarding Prigozhin’s most recent claims, the Kremlin has made no remarks.
The military of Ukraine reported that it was not observing a decrease in the ferocity of the battle close to Bakhmut.
According to Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesman for Ukraine’s Eastern Command, “Prigozhin has been trying to make outrageous statements in order to draw attention to himself for months.”
Hanna Malyar, the deputy minister of defense for Ukraine, claimed that Russia was frantically attempting to take Bakhmut by May 9.
Prigozhin, in charge of a private army of mercenaries leading the Russian onslaught, has emerged as a significant figure in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which was initiated in February 2022.
No of how serious their crimes, he enlisted thousands of prisoners to fight for Wagner in Ukraine in exchange for recruitment.
Vladimir Putin’s hometown, St. Petersburg, is where Prigozhin was born. Most likely, the two first ran into each other at one of Prigozhin’s eateries in the city. Years later, the Kremlin hired Prigozhin’s catering business Concord to provide food, garnering him the moniker “Putin’s chef”.
Head of Russia’s private army to Putin’s chef
Months had passed while the conflict over Bakhmut lingered on. Wagner soldiers and regular Russian forces engaged in joint combat with the Ukrainian military.
In an apparent effort to concentrate Russian military resources on one location of comparatively low consequence, Ukraine determined to defend the city at any costs.
In February, Prigozhin published another picture of his dead soldiers and accused the army generals of causing their demise.
The military responded at the time by increasing supply to the front line, despite the fact that they later denied purposefully depriving his Wagner squad of shells.
According to US-based military analyst Rob Lee, Wagner’s most recent claim of a shortage is most likely the result of Russia’s defense ministry restricting ammunition in front of Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive.
The ministry must defend the entire front, but according to Prigozhin, seizing Bakhmut is his only priority. Mr. Lee said that Prigozhin might take political credit if Wagner succeeded in capturing the city.
As soon as the last of the spring rains have passed, tanks and artillery will be ready to move in dry weather, according to the mercenary chief, who also predicted that Ukraine’s counteroffensive will start by May 15.
Separately, Prigozhin seems to have appointed a former army commander to the position of chief of logistics.
Col-Gen Mikhail Mizintsev earned the moniker “butcher of Mariupol” for his involvement in last year’s bombardment of the port city in southern Ukraine that Russian forces had previously taken control of.
The general had done his utmost to assist in mercenaries’ ammo needs and had cooperated with the group’s efforts to enlist convicted criminals into its ranks, according to Prigozhin.
Col-Gen Mizintsev was only appointed to oversee army supplies in September of last year, shortly after Prigozhin was caught on camera in a Russian jail promising inmates their freedom if they served with his troops in Ukraine.
