The head of Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigojin, admitted on Wednesday that the Russian military campaign in Ukraine had failed, saying none of its objectives had been achieved.
“The special military operation was launched with the aim of ‘denazification’, but we have made Ukraine a nation known all over the world”Prigojin on the social network Telegram, quoted by the Spanish agency EFE.
The businessman, who was in charge of the mercenaries of the Wagner group on the front lines, said that the Russian invasion had made the Ukrainians “the Greeks and Romans of the era of prosperity”.
Prigojin is an ally of President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, among other things to “demilitarize and denazify” the neighboring country.
Since the beginning of the war, Prigojin has been a harsh critic of the Russian General Staff and Defense Minister Serguei Shoigu.
The head of the Wagner group believed that Russia was also failing in the goal of demilitarization of Ukraine.
“If they were before the start of the special operation [os ucranianos] for example, they had 500 tanks, now they have 5,000. If they were able to fight 20,000 soldiers back then, now they have 400,000.”he claimed.
“It turns out that we are militarizing Ukraine, and in what way!” he criticized, in reference to the supply of weapons by Kiev’s Western allies as a result of the invasion.
Prigojin also said that the Wagner group “is the best army in the world”.
“To be correct, I must say that the second best army in the world is the Russian army. But I think the Ukrainians have one of the strongest armies,” he said.
Prigojin said that the Ukrainian army can successfully use any weapon system, be it Soviet or NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
He also compared the motivation of Ukrainian soldiers with that of the Soviets during the war against Nazi Germany.
“They are doing everything they can to achieve the ultimate goal, just like we did during the Great Patriotic War,” he said.
The Great Patriotic War is the name given in Russia to the period of World War II between the beginning of the invasion of the then Soviet Union in 1941 and the capitulation of Germany in 1945.
Prigojin also criticized the children of Russia’s elite for the luxurious life they display on social media, when “ordinary people see their children return in zinc coffins, smashed to pieces”.
“And we should not think that there are hundreds, now there are tens of thousands of relatives of the dead. And there will certainly be hundreds of thousands,” he added.
Prigojin warned that this duality of criteria “could end in a revolution like in 1917”, referring to the conflict that resulted in the end of the monarchy and the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin.
In addition to arms shipments, Kyiv’s Western allies have imposed sanctions on Russia to try to reduce Moscow’s ability to fund the war effort.
The number of victims of the conflict is unknown, which plunged Europe into what is considered the worst security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
Source: DN
