The animosity between the owner of the Wagner mercenary company and the Russian military leadership is not new, but the head-on clash took place in recent hours. After leaving Bakhmut with his militias at the end of May, in a months-long battle with the Defense Minister and the Chief of the General Staff, Yevgeny Prigozhin refused the new order requiring “volunteer detachments” to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense.
Now, in a video, he accused Minister Sergei Shoigu of deceiving Vladimir Putin and Russian society. He then asked the judicial authorities to initiate criminal proceedings against Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of staff for the crimes of “genocide of the Russian people” and “treason”. Hours later, he accused Shoigu of ordering an operation against his men in a field in the back and promised to conduct a “march for justice” to “stop the evils caused by the country’s military leaders”.
Recently, Russian militias that have been fighting alongside the Ukrainians in the border regions of Bryansk and Belgorod have been raiding and fighting Russian troops. Now it is warlord Prigozhin, an ally of Vladimir Putin, who is threatening an uprising against his declared enemies Shoigu and Gerasimov.
“The evil caused by the military leaders of the country must be stopped. They are neglecting the lives of soldiers. They have forgotten the word “justice” and we will bring it back. Those who destroyed our men today, who have killed tens, tens of thousands destroyed of the lives of Russian soldiers will be punished. I ask: that no one resist. Anyone who tries to resist, we will consider a danger and we will immediately destroy them, including all checkpoints in our path,” Prigozhin announced in an audio post on the Telegram channel of his Concord group of companies.
However, he later clarified (or not): “This is not a military coup. This is a march for justice. Our actions do not interfere with the military in any way.”
The Russian Defense Ministry rejected the allegation that the Russian army had attacked a camp belonging to Wagner, calling the reports “propaganda”.
The Kremlin responded in a different, more ambiguous way. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the president is aware of the allegations made by the Wagner mercenary group. “President Putin has been informed of all developments around Prigozhin. Necessary measures are being taken,” said Peskov.
In the hour-long video that sparked this spiral of events, Prigozhin said what no Russian can say without legal repercussions. First, that Donbass has been looted by the Russians since 2014, from the presidential administration to the FSB and oligarchs like Ukrainian Serhiy Kurchenko.
Afterwards, he accused the military leaders of plotting a war under false pretenses. “The defense ministry tried to mislead the president and society by saying that Ukraine was going mad with aggression and that it was planning to attack us along with the entire NATO bloc,” he said, exonerating Putin. He also claimed that the “oligarch clan” was pressuring the invasion.
According to the man who became known as the chief of Putin, Shoigu convinced the leader that the war was necessary so that “a bunch of bastards can take power and show what a strong army they have”. But the invasion was a failure due to “incompetent planning”.
“For some reason this bunch of idiots thought they were so smart that no one would understand what they were doing or stop them from reaching Kiev,” so when his men entered Ukraine, in March 2022, that is days after the start of the invasion, “it was already impossible to talk about a victory, since the forces were not enough.”
Macron accuses Russia of destabilizing Africa
On the same day, the French president, albeit indirectly, referred to Prigozhin and accused Russia of being “a destabilizing force in Africa through private militias that abuse and abuse the civilian population,” he said in an interview with RFI, france info. and France 24.
According to the US State Department, Prigozhin’s mercenaries are active in Libya, the Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan. In addition, they have already operated in Mozambique and possibly also in Burkina Faso.
Hosting a summit for a new global financial pact on climate, Emmanuel Macron hosted heads of state and government and other senior leaders at the Élysée on Thursday for a working dinner and then bilateral meetings, such as the one with the Brazilian president, who did not comment on the war in Ukraine.
Previously, both participated in a round table. In it, Lula da Silva was the spokesman for the Brazilian agricultural sector by demonstrating his opposition to the EU’s environmental demands for the free trade agreement between Brussels and the Mercosur countries. A position taken in line with what the left-wing newspaper states liberation headlined: “Lula the deception”.
Source: DN
