The head of the Wagner mercenary group has accused Russian military leaders of targeting his troops.
Yevgeny Prigozhin said the attack happened after he criticised the country’s top brass in an explosive outburst on the Telegram messaging app.
In a video, he had said the Kremlin’s rationale for invading Ukraine last February was based on lies – and the “evil” of Russia’s military leadership must be stopped.
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Drone footage shows Bakhmut devastation
Prigozhin has since claimed the country’s defence ministry ordered a rocket strike on Wagner’s field camps in Ukraine – killing scores of his fighters.
He warned that his troops will move to punish defence minister Sergei Shoigu – and urged the army not to offer resistance.
“This is not an armed rebellion, but a march of justice,” Prigozhin said.
In a statement, the Russian defence ministry rejected his claims – describing the allegations as “untrue and an informational provocation”.
According to the TASS news agency, President Vladimir Putin has been made aware of the latest developments, and “necessary measures are being taken”.
It has also been reported that the FSB security service has now opened a criminal case against Prigozhin for armed mutiny.
An escalation
In his Telegram clip earlier on Friday, the Wagner chief had dismissed Moscow’s core justifications for invading Ukraine last February in what it called a “special military operation”.
Prigozhin said: “The defence ministry is trying to deceive society and the president and tell us a story about how there was crazy aggression from Ukraine and that they were planning to attack us with the whole of NATO.”
The mercenary chief went on to claim “the war wasn’t needed to demilitarise or denazify Ukraine” – and was driven by a desire to enrich the ruling elite.
He also argued that Moscow could have struck a deal with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the war began.
The Wagner group, a private military company, played an instrumental role in helping Russia capture the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut last month.
It was a long and bloody battle, with Wagner relying on tens of thousands of convicts who were promised pardons if they survived six months of fighting.
‘Sailing close to the wind’
While Prigozhin has repeatedly attacked Moscow, he has stopped short of criticising President Vladimir Putin directly.
Nonetheless, his latest claims contradict Putin’s narrative, with Russian authorities imposing fines and prison terms for those who spread “falsehoods” about the conflict.
Prigozhin’s latest video claims that tens of thousands of young Russian lives have been sacrificed needlessly, while the nation’s top brass swill vodka and cognac while dining on caviar.
On Thursday, he had accused senior members of the military of lying to Putin and the Ukrainian people about the scale of Russian losses in Ukraine, as well as setbacks on the battlefield.
And in previous clips, he was shown standing in front of slain troops in Ukraine and yelling insults at military leadership.
He shouted: “They came here as volunteers and they died to let you lounge in your mahogany offices. You are sitting in your expensive clubs, your children are enjoying good living and filming videos on YouTube. Those who don’t give us ammunition will be eaten alive in hell.”
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Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: “Prigozhin is now sailing much closer to the wind than he ever has.
“If your military forces are divided and if they’re not fighting together effectively, then your military operations will suffer accordingly and that’s exactly what’s happening here.”
And Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political commentator, described Prigozhin as “the second-most popular man after Putin” and a “symbol of Russia’s military victory for millions of people”.
There has been speculation that Prigozhin has ambitions for high office, with his criticisms creating the illusion that he is an outsider.
But Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Endowment said Prigozhin owes his position and wealth to Putin, adding: “He is playing an independent politician, raising the stakes and testing the system’s limits.
“But it’s only technically and physically possible for as long as Putin finds him useful and is amused by his escapades.”