© Yulia Morozova/ReutersFounder of Wagner private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves a cemetery in Moscow, Russia, April 8, 2023.
The Wagner Group, a well-known mercenary unit known to be one of Russia's most competent fighting divisions, is leading the charge on Bakhmut, a city that that has gained outsized symbolic importance.
"I am withdrawing the Wagner PMC units from Bakhmut, because in the absence of ammunition they are doomed to senseless death," Prigozhin said in full military fatigues and carrying an automatic weapon. The video he released showed him surrounded by masked Wagner fighters. Prigozhin also released a statement to the same effect.
His forces had no choice but to withdraw to rear bases to "lick the wounds," said Prigozhin, as translated by the Washington Post. If Wagner goes through with the withdrawal, it would be viewed as catastrophic in terms of morale. The Russian invasion has ground to a standstill after large-scale Russian and Ukrainian offensives last year. Kyiv, which has been amassing weapons, tanks and fighter jets, is expected to launch a fresh counterattack in the very near future.
Prigozhin also launched a remarkable video tirade overnight on Telegram in which he displayed bodies of dozens of Wagner soldiers killed in Bakhmut. He angrily laid into the Russian Defense minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, for supplying Wagner with only 30 percent of the ammunition that's needed.
The statement released today claimed that number was even lower, standing at 10 percent.
Wagner has been widely condemned in the West for its numerous human-rights violations, and many members of Congress have called for the mercenary group to be designated a foreign terrorist organization, which the Biden administration has so far declined to do.
According to Western intelligence, Wagner deployed some 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, many of them prisoners. Earlier this week, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since December alone and that half of that number was Wagner fighters on the front line in Bakhmut.
Tensions between Wagner and the Russian defense apparatus have mounted in recent months. The timing of Prigozhin's announcement could be intended to shift blame for the failure to capture Bakhmut before Victory Day.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who recently accused the U.S. of orchestrating alleged drone attacks on the capital, has said reports of a conflict with Wagner are the product of "information manipulation," according to the Post. "But sometimes our friends behave in such a way that we don't need enemies," Peskov added.
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