In a new video released Saturday, the head of Wagner’s mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, launches an unprecedented attack on the Kremlin just as Russian forces appear to be bringing Moscow a welcome victory on the battlefield after a long period of stumbling. and failures, conquering the city of Bakhmut, where bloody battles are fought. The news agency TASS also reported on the message of “Putin’s cook”, but the article was later deleted.

Just a day after announcing that Bakhmut was “virtually surrounded” and calling for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi to withdraw his troops, the founder of the Wagner paramilitary group is apparently threatening the Kremlin with dramatic consequences for Russia if his men withdraw from Bakhmut.

On a recording made in a dark room, Prigozhin praises his mercenaries, without whom “the whole front would have collapsed to the borders of Russia or even further.”

“If “Wagner” withdraws from Bakhmut now, the entire front will collapse. The situation will be unpleasant for all military formations that protect the interests of Russia,” he added, asserting that the Russian military will be forced to stabilize the front, and “Crimea will fall” and there will be “many other cataclysms.”

“Putin’s cook” assumes that the battles in Bakhmut are being fought in order to prevent the Kyiv troops from focusing on other directions and to save the reputation of the Russian troops.

Prigozhin also says that his mercenaries may be unpleasantly surprised if they suspect that the Russian authorities have set a trap for them by not supplying them with ammunition and reinforcements, but they will know exactly who to blame for treason.

“And this is precisely the problem of the lack of ammunition. … Ordinary fighters … They will come and say: boss, maybe this story is played out somewhere in the depths of the Ministry of Defense, or maybe higher, to explain to the Russian people why we got into this trouble? They want to set a trap for us and say that we are criminals, that’s why they don’t give us ammunition and weapons and don’t let them strengthen the personnel, including convicts?”, Yevgeny Prigozhin concludes his almost 4-minute speech. monologue.

The news about the “slump of the front”, published by the Russian press, was later deleted

The Russian state news agency TASS was the first to publish an article about the “collapse of the front” on its website, but it was later removed.

When Prigozhin announced on Friday that Bamut was “virtually surrounded,” TASS still had the lead, although until then it had been ordered not to publish information about Wagner’s group and its mercenaries in an effort to stop the growth of the founder’s paramilitary group. group.

Prigozhin-Soigu match

The owner of the private paramilitary group “Wagner” in February accused Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Army Valery Gerasimov of actions that constitute treason, Reuters and Agerpres reported.

Boss Wagner has repeatedly accused the Ministry of Defense in Moscow of trying to steal his victories, such as the capture of the Ukrainian bastion of Bakhmut, around which his forces won several areas, and says the Russian army has not deployed any units there.

Prigozhin recognized the “total lack of ammunition” in the ranks of mercenary units fighting in Donbas, and demanded more shells from the Ministry of Defense, which he received after accusations of treason.

According to the media, Prigozhin stopped recruiting prisoners to fight in Ukraine at the behest of the Ministry of Defense, which, according to some bloggers, was ordered to minimize the presence of Wagner’s boss in the media.

Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to meet the demands of some lawmakers to legalize private military companies, but ordered to put the families of mercenaries on a par with soldiers and soldiers’ families in social benefits.

The Ukrainian army does not leave Bakhmut

As The Guardian reports, a spokesman for the Ukrainian armed forces on Saturday denied reports that they were preparing a mass withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the mining town of the Donetsk region.

ISW analysts said in an assessment on Saturday morning that the actions of troops in Kyiv indicate a possible mass withdrawal.

According to ISW geolocation images, Ukrainian forces destroyed two critical bridges in the Bakhmut area – one over the Bakhmutivka River in the northeast of Bakhmut and one along the Khromovye-Bakhmut highway, west of Bakhmut.

The pre-emptive destruction of the bridges likely indicates that Ukrainian forces may be trying to impede the Russian advance into eastern Bakhmut and limit Russia’s potential exit routes from Bakhmut to the west, ISW believes.

“The fighting in Bakhmut is more on the sidelines, the city is controlled by the Ukrainian defense forces: the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Border Service and the National Guard,” said Serhiy Cherevaty, the spokesman of the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. of Ukraine for CNN.

Answering the question whether the Ukrainian military is considering the possibility of mass withdrawal of units, he added: “There is also no mass withdrawal of Ukrainian troops.”

Cherevaty also emphasized on Ukrainian television that the situation in Bakhmut is difficult, but under control, and that despite the fact that the Russians blew up the bridge connecting Bakhmut with the village of Khromov, Ukrainian troops will resume defense and continue to repel the offensive. , he writes to Ukrinform.

And the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that on Saturday Russian troops continued unsuccessful offensive actions in the area of ​​Bakhmut, Avdiyivka, Maryinka and Vugledar, in particular unsuccessfully trying to capture Bakhmut, “Ukrainian Pravda” notes.