The Russian army is withdrawing in several sectors of southern and eastern Ukraine, the leader of the paramilitary group Wagner said on Friday, contradicting the Kremlin’s claims that the counter-offensive in Kiev had failed.
“The (Russian) army retreats to the Zaporizhia and Kherson (south) regions, Ukrainian forces are pushing,” Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video interview published by his press service on Telegram.
“The same thing is happening in Bachmout, the enemy will keep penetrating our defenses,” the businessman added, referring to an eastern town that the Russians are said to have captured but which the Ukrainians say the Ukrainians have been attacking lately the flanks have advanced weeks.
“There is no control, there is no military success” from Moscow, again slamming Mr. Prigoyine and reiterating that Russian soldiers are “washing themselves with their blood”, thereby claiming that they are suffering heavy casualties.
Unverifiable from an independent source, the words of Wagner’s boss contradict those of President Vladimir Putin and his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, according to which the Russian army “fends off” all Ukrainian attacks.
In recent days, Mr Putin reiterated that the Ukrainian counter-offensive had failed and that the forces in Kiev had suffered near “catastrophic” casualties. On Thursday, Mr Shoigu assured that the Ukrainian army was in the process of “regrouping” after failing to breach Russian defenses.
Mr. Prigoyine called the Russian Defense Ministry’s victorious declarations a “profound deception” and accused the staff of “hiding” Russia’s difficulties and losses on the ground.
Evidence that the Ukrainian counter-offensive is taken very seriously by Moscow is the fact that Mr. Putin spoke several times within a few days about the situation on the battlefield, while in recent months he has tended not to go into detail about the events to express there.
While many opponents and anonymous Russians are in prison for criticizing the Ukraine conflict, the Wagner boss openly questioned the reasons for the military intervention on Friday.
“The war was necessary to promote a group of bastards,” he lashed out, also blaming “the Russian oligarchs” who “needed the war,” while he said Kiev was “not ready for an agreement.”