Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Vladimir Putin’s private army of mercenaries (the Wagner Group), is not known for holding back on his feelings. He has trashed Putin on numerous occasions for leaving the group twisting in the wind without adequate ammo, although nonexistent ammo might be preferable to degraded ammo that could “explode in your face.” Prigozhin has also trashed Putin for essentially turning the Wagner Group into hamburger meat in Ukraine, and Putin’s also doing the same thing to his own army, which is why he has to replenish troops by pardoning convicts.
What Putin and Prigozhin do surprisingly agree on (at least for the moment) is that Russia is performing abysmally, but Prigozhin appears to have finally had it. Via The Moscow Times, the mercenary leader lamented, “We are washing ourselves in blood. No one is bringing reserves. What they tell us is the deepest deception.” On that note, Prigozhin accused the Russian Defense Ministry and Russian leadership of “deceiving the public” by claiming that Russia defensively attacked Ukraine, which is incredible. The rant continued:
“The Armed Forces of Ukraine were not going to attack Russia with the NATO bloc,” Prigozhin explained in the half-hour tirade released by his press service.
“The mentally ill scumbags decided ‘It’s okay, we’ll throw in a few thousand more Russian men as ‘cannon fodder.’ ‘They’ll die under artillery fire, but we’ll get what we want’,” Prigozhin continued.
“That’s why it has become a protracted war … The task was to divide material assets in Ukraine. There was widespread theft in the [industrial eastern Ukrainian territory of the] Donbas, but they wanted more.”
One wonders how long Prigozhin will hang in there before declaring that the Wagner Group is out. And as Newsweek also reports, he’s growing more popular with the Russian public by the day. Some have even speculated that he might run for president, if Putin gets the boot. Well, reports have suggested that a military coup might be possible against Putin, so in all likelihood, there are more related developments to come.
(Via The Moscow Times & Newsweek)