A representative of Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was reportedly denied access to Russia’s military command in Ukraine on Monday, in the latest sign Moscow is sidelining Prigozhin’s mercenary battle group in the war in Ukraine.
The apparent snub comes as Prigozhin begs Moscow to provide the Wagner group with ammunition they desperately need in the war. However, the ammunition was not delivered – an act Prigozhin said could be either “ordinary bureaucracy or treason”.
“On March 5, I wrote a letter to the commander of the SMO grouping about the urgent need to allocate ammunition. At 8 a.m. on March 6, my representative at headquarters had his passport revoked and denied access,” Prigozhin said in a Telegram post, according to a Portal translation.
Wagner Group fighters appealed to Russia for more ammunition in February and found that Wagner Group mercenaries were dying needlessly in Ukraine while trying to repel a Ukrainian advance at Bakhmut.
The delays and recent denials to the Wagner representative have left Prigozhin questioning whether Russia – more than a year into a war with no end in sight – is willing to use Wagner as a scapegoat if it loses the war.
“What if she [the Russian authorities] want to trick us and say we’re scoundrels – and that’s why they don’t give us ammunition, no weapons and don’t let us replenish our staff, including [recruiting] Prisoners,” Prigozhin said in a video, referring to recent measures taken by Russia to prevent the Wagner group from rounding up prisoners to walk on missions in Ukraine with little or no training.
Prigozhin warned that if supplies were not delivered to Wagner, Russia could lose Bakhmut – and more – to Ukraine.
“If Wagner withdraws from Bakhmut now, the whole front will collapse,” he said.
Russia has been trying to capture Bakhmut for months, with significant losses, and failing, according to the National Security Council.
Although Prigozhin questions whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is attempting to blame Wagner for losses, according to an earlier assessment by the White House National Security Council, Putin has relied on the Wagner group’s struggles to help the failure of Russia’s more conventional armed forces to balance .
The Wagner Group’s fighting has been “slightly more effective” than Russian forces, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters on Monday.
In recent days, the focus has shifted from Wagner’s fighting to Bakhmut from the east and north as Ukrainian fighters retreated west of the Bakhmutia River, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Should Russia prove victorious at Bakhmut, it is unlikely to change the direction of the war, Austin said Monday.
“If the Ukrainians decide to reposition in some areas west of Bakhmut, I wouldn’t see it as an operational or strategic setback,” Austin said, according to Fox News, who was traveling with the defense secretary. “The fall of Bakhmut does not necessarily mean that … the Russians have changed the tide of this fight.”