The impasse for the Russian army near Bakhmut was fought between the founder of PMC Wagner and the RF Ministry of Defense.
Mercenaries PMC Wagner made an insulting appeal to the head of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov. The reason for the dissatisfaction was the poor provision of the units participating in the attack on the Ukrainian Bakhmut. PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin supported his fighters and confirmed the lack of ammunition.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has already intervened in a public conflict between various Russian law enforcement agencies and sent his PMC to Donbass.
Read about the details of the split in the Russian army in the story Correspondent.net.
offensive video
“To the Chief of the General Staff! You’re af*ck and damn it! We have no shells, men are dying for us, and we are sitting here, we are not helping,” two Wagner fighters turned to Gerasimov in the video.
They emotionally complained about the lack of shells and spoke again to the addressee of the message: “We are fighting here near Bakhmut against the whole Ukrainian army, where are you? Help us at last! all of you?”
A video with such an appeal to the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation began to diverge on Telegram channels associated with PMC Wagner on December 26. After publication, Russian military correspondents began to smooth over the situation and write that it is a provocation of “Ukrainian nationalists” or “throw-in of the CIPSO.”
Prigozhin himself is in no hurry to confirm the authenticity of the video. A few hours after publication, he said: “I know the situation well and I do not consider it necessary to comment on this information to the media.”
But in the late afternoon of December 26, Prigozhin rejected the version that the Ukrainians could be behind the video recording and published the following voice message on the channels associated with it: “Specially to answer your question, I went to the men in the dugouts. . “Ukrainian nationalists? And I didn’t see it. Our main task and theirs too is to go and get Bakhmut. And I don’t think Bakhmut is far behind. And about the problems that, unfortunately, arise at every step. , Hope “We will solve them. We will solve them. And we will force them to solve them. There are no nationalists in that sensational video.”
PMC Shoigu in Donbass
On December 28, it became known that Shoigu had sent a private military company affiliated with him to Ukraine. Patriotic. These PMC mercenaries, competing with the “Wagnerites”, were seen near the settlement of Stepnoe near Vugledar.
According to the spokesman of the Eastern Group of Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Sergei Cherevaty, Prigozhin’s units are also located there, but these same PMCs operate in “different theaters of military operations and not interacting with each other.” Cherevaty reported that the enemy was concentrating all combat-ready forces in this direction “to achieve at least some result.”
Commenting on the conflict between the “Wagnerites” and Shoigu, Cherevaty called them “competitors.”
Union against the Ministry of Defence
Ukrainian intelligence has information that a certain alliance was created in Russia between Prigozhin and the commander of the Russian grouping of troops in Ukraine, Sergei Surovikin, to compete with Shoigu. Such an association led to the transfer of heavy weapons from the regular Russian army to the “Wagnerites”. This was said by the head of Ukrainian military intelligence Kirill Budanov in an interview with The New York Times.
Relentless mercenary attempts PMC Wagner the acquisition of Bakhmut was the result of the aforementioned alliance. So, they want to show that they can succeed where regular troops can’t, Budanov said.
Blackmail with shells
Former SBU official and expert of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future Ivan Stupak said that Prigozhin was ordered to create PMC Wagner from Putin, although he does not want to do it.
“He did not want to deal with Wagner – they imposed him. Who imposed it? The Kovalchuk brothers are the brothers closest to Vladimir Putin. Perhaps more than the Rottenberg brothers, who built the Crimean bridge and once went to judo with Putin” , – said Stupak on the air of channel 24.
According to him, Prigozhin now enjoys the protection of the Kovalchuk brothers. After all, because of Putin’s punishment, they entrusted him to command a private army.
“He asks for people, they give him prisoners, he asks for equipment – they give tanks. This allowed him to straighten his shoulders. Then he began to criticize first Shoigu, and then the governor of St . Petersburg Beglov,” the former SBU officer reminded.
So, he explained, Prigozhin now had an important leverage. However, this criticism, especially of Shoigu, began to work against him.
“That’s why the Russian army stopped giving them shells. They do, but supply problems are starting. So the Russian army is trying to blow up the Prigozhin base,”
said Stupak.
And the Ministry of Defense of Russia hopes that in this way Prigozhin will bury himself in this war as soon as possible and lose the trust of Mikhail Kovalchuk, and therefore all his influence.
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Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.