The Russian army is retreating to several sectors of southern and eastern Ukraine, the leader of the Wagner paramilitary group said on Friday, contradicting Moscow’s claims that the Kiev counter-offensive was a failure.
“The army [russo] withdraws from the Zaporijia and Kherson areas [sul]Ukrainian forces are advancing,” Yevgeny Prigozhin stated in a video published on the Telegram social network, quoted by the French agency AFP.
Prigozhin said the same is happening in Bakhmut, where Ukrainian troops are breaking into Russian defenses.
Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, has been the scene of the longest and bloodiest battle since the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.
Russian troops claim to have taken the town, where Wagner Group mercenaries fought, but Ukrainians say they have advanced from the flanks in recent weeks.
“There is no control, no military successes” by Moscow, Prigozhin declared, saying the Russian army was “washing itself in its own blood”, a way of saying it was suffering heavy casualties.
Prigozhin’s comments, which cannot be independently verified, contradict Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who said the military repelled all Ukrainian attacks.
Putin has repeatedly reiterated in recent days that the Ukrainian counter-offensive has failed and that Kiev’s forces have suffered near catastrophic losses.
On Thursday, Shoigu said the Ukrainian army was regrouping after failing to break through Russian defenses.
Prigozhin described the victorious statements of the Moscow Defense Ministry as a “profound mistake” and accused the General Staff of hiding Russian difficulties and losses on the ground.
As proof that he takes the Ukrainian counter-offensive seriously, Putin spoke about the situation on the battlefield several times in a few days, after some time without commenting in detail on the situation on the ground.
While many Russian opponents and anonymous people are in prison for criticizing the conflict in Ukraine, the leader of the Wagner Group this Friday openly questioned the reasons for the military intervention.
“The war was necessary for a bunch of assholes to get promoted,” he said.
Prigozhin also accused Russia’s oligarchs of pushing the country into war because they needed it, while Kiev, he said, was “ready for any deal”.
Russia invaded Ukraine to “demilitarize and denazify” the neighboring country, which was part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) led by Moscow and collapsed in 1991.
Source: DN
