Russian state television on Sunday accused Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin of “losing his mind” after receiving millions in government money, illustrating the paramilitary group’s new power narrative since the aborted riot.
“Prigozhin has gone mad over large sums of money,” Dmitri Kissiliov, one of the main voices of the Kremlin’s media apparatus, said in his weekly program on the public channel.
“The feeling of taking everything for granted started a long time ago, with operations [do Grupo Wagner] in Syria and Africa,” he continued.
According to Kissiliov, this feeling was “reinforced” after Prigozhin’s mercenaries took over the towns of Soledar and Bakhmut in Ukraine earlier this year.
“[Prigozhin] thought he could oppose the Russian Defense Ministry, the state and the president himself,” said Kissiliov who, to illustrate the alleged megalomania of the leader of the Wagner Group, noted, without providing any evidence, that the military company 858 billion rubles (8,800 million euros) in public money.
According to Kissiliov, “one of the most important factors” in the ‘Wagner’ mutiny was the Russian Defense Ministry’s refusal to renew the lucrative contracts signed with the ‘catering’ group Concord, also belonging to Prigozhin.
The Wagner Group uprising, which took place on June 23 and 24, shocked Russian authorities in the middle of the conflict in Ukraine.
For hours the ‘Wagner’ fighters occupied a headquarters of the Russian army in Rostov (southwest) and drove several hundred kilometers towards Moscow.
The mutiny ended on the night of June 24, with an agreement for Prigozhin to leave for Belarus.
No sanctions have been imposed on the mutineers, but the future of Prigozhin’s companies seems uncertain. Web news portals near the group have been blocked in Russia for the past week.
Last Saturday, the group’s headquarters in St. Petersburg, the Wagner Center, announced on the Telegram social network that it would change its location, but assured that it would continue to function, but under a “new format”.
Prigozhin insisted his uprising was not to overthrow the government, but to save “Wagner” from being dismantled by the Russian General Staff, whom he blatantly accuses of “incompetence” in the Ukraine conflict.
As of Monday, June 26, Prigozhin has not made any public statements.
Today, Kissiliov challenged the idea that the ‘Wagner’ fighters were the most effective Russian forces, stating that it took “225 days” to take Bakhmut, compared to “70 days” for the regular army to take Mariupol.
The military offensive launched by Russia in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has so far led to the flight of nearly 15 million people – more than 6.5 million internally displaced people and more than 8.2 million to European countries -, according to data from the UN, which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
At least 18 million Ukrainians need humanitarian aid and more than 9.3 million need food aid and housing.
The invasion, which was justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin with the need for what he defined as “denazization” and demilitarization of Ukraine for Russia’s security, was condemned by the international community at large, which responded by sending weapons to Kiev and impose political and economic sanctions against Moscow.
The UN presented as confirmed nearly 9,000 civilian deaths and more than 15,000 wounded since the start of the war, underlining that these numbers are far from real.
Source: DN
