The head of Russia’s private army Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has accused Moscow’s military leadership of attacking its mercenary units and has threatened countermeasures. Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu had Wagner camps in the rear attacked with artillery, helicopters and rockets, Prigozhin said in a voice message distributed by his press service on Telegram on Friday.
He has 25,000 men under his command, who would now explain why such arbitrariness prevails in the country. “Whoever tries to resist us will be seen as a threat and killed immediately,” Prigozhin threatened. The Russian Defense Ministry denied an attack. All allegations are false and a “provocation,” it said in a statement.
According to Prigozhin, Shoigu came to Rostov-on-Don, a city of over a million people near the Ukrainian border, to direct the operation to destroy Wagner. “At 9:00 p.m. he fled – cowardly as a woman – not to explain why he took off helicopters and launched rocket attacks to kill our boys. This beast will be stopped,” said Prigozhin. He spoke of a “large number” of dead, but did not give an exact number of the mercenaries allegedly killed in the attack.
In the evening, the Interfax news agency reported that the Russian secret service FSB was investigating the mercenary boss for an attempted military coup. According to the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, Prigozhin called for a fight against Moscow’s military leadership. “The allegations spread on behalf of Yevgeny Prigozhin are completely unfounded. Therefore, based on these statements, the FSB has launched a criminal case for inciting an armed coup,” the agency’s statement read. In addition to the FSB, practically all other Russian security organs belong to the committee.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin was aware of the case.
For months, there has been a steadily escalating rivalry between Prigozhin and the Moscow military leadership. Prigozhin’s Wagner troupe played a key role in the bloody conquest of the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. He was already complaining about sabotage by the regular troops. According to the accusation, his units were not supplied with sufficient ammunition.
Most recently, the general staff in Moscow pushed through that the many private armies fighting on Moscow’s side in the war of aggression against Ukraine should be subordinate to the Ministry of Defense by contract. Prigozhin had strongly opposed this and accused the head of the ministry of giving a false picture of the situation at the front – and thereby also deceiving President Vladimir Putin.
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated several times.
