Prigozhin threatens to retreat from Bakhmut, calls the situation critical

2023-04-29 17:35:15

Russian businessman, head of the private military company “Wagner” Yevgeny Prigozhin said that this PMC “will end soon.” What does this statement of an odious Russian mean, I tried figure out BBC.

Evgeny Prigozhin during an interview with Wargonzo. Photo: Wargonzo

Prigozhin gave a long interview to a Russian military blogger Semen Pegova, the owner of the War Gonzo channel.

During the conversation, the head of Wagner spoke about the difficult situation at the front and the significant problems of the Russian army and mercenaries from PMCs.

It follows from his words that the regular Russian army is in a deplorable state, and the Wagner PMC is the driving force behind the advancement of the Russian forces in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

In the RF Armed Forces, said Evgeny Prigozhinincluding normal management and strategic vision.

For example, he stated that there is no understanding of what the Russian forces should do after the capture of Bakhmut. Prigozhin claims that he developed the operation to capture the city last year, together with the then commander of the Russian troops. Sergei Surovikin.

The plan was to deprive the Armed Forces of Ukraine of offensive capability by the end of 2022 by destroying their reserves near Bakhmut.

But now Ukraine has managed to prepare new military units for the counteroffensive, which should begin in the near future – before May 15, Prigozhin believes.

Russian forces are not ready for this offensive, he says.

As of today, says Prigozhin, the Wagner fighters who are fighting for Bakhmut are critically short of ammunition. Their stocks are in the warehouses of the regular Russian army, he assures.

PMCs seem to need 80,000 shells per day, but Prigozhin asks the RF Ministry of Defense to provide at least 4,000. But he doesn’t get that either.

Due to the lack of ammunition, Wagner’s losses increased by 5 times, says the owner of the PMC.

“Today, we are coming to the conclusion that PMC Wagner is ending, PMC Wagner will cease to exist in a short time. We will go to history. It’s okay, it happens.”

In view of the situation described, Prigozhin intends to apply to Russian law enforcement agencies with a request to bring officials of the Russian Defense Ministry to justice.

If the situation with the “shell hunger” is not resolved, then “Wagner” will leave Bakhmut – in whole or in part.

“If the shortage of ammunition is not replenished, then we will have to be in an organized manner so as not to run like cowardly rats, or go out or stay to die. We will probably be forced to withdraw part of the unit from this territory, and then … everything else will crumble. We’re ringing the alarm!”

But at the same time, Yevgeny Prigozhin says that the “Wagnerites” do not plan to “deploy guns” against the Kremlin, despite the difficult situation near Bakhmut.

It should be noted that Wagner fighters and the Russian regular army have been fighting for Bakhmut in the Donetsk region for 10 months.

As of the end of April, Ukrainian forces held only part of the residential areas in the west of the city, as well as two roads leading from Bakhmut to Chasov Yar and Konstantinovka.

Due to the tactics of conducting assaults in waves and at the expense of mainly ex-prisoners, the Wagner suffers huge losses in personnel.

According to British intelligence, at the beginning of the year, about 50 thousand “Wagnerites” fought in Ukraine. By the end of March, their number had significantly decreased.

In particular, Ian Stubbs, senior military adviser to the British delegation to the OSCE, said that after the battles in the Bakhmut area, 30,000 Russian servicemen and Wagnerites were killed or wounded.

“These losses in manpower will continue to deter Russian offensive operations in the Bakhmut area, as well as in the wider theater of operations, and significant Wagner losses are likely to threaten its ability to maintain its influential role among Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.” , says the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

According to intelligence, the Kremlin is already looking for a replacement for the Wagner.

“The Russian military leadership seems to want to replace them with another PMC that would be more under their control. However, none of the known Russian private military companies is comparable to the “Wagner group” in size and combat capability.

The leadership of the Russian Federation probably believes that it will be easier for society to perceive large losses among PMC mercenaries than in the regular army.

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