Wagner Group leader claims Russian forces attacked his troops

The leader of Russia’s Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed Friday that Russian forces targeted his private military company, with “many victims.”

The attack occurred after Prigozhin produced a video where he lambasted the Russian military brass for peddling falsehoods about the war to the Russian public and to President Putin. “The ministry of defense is trying to deceive the public and the president and spin the story that there was insane levels of aggression from the Ukrainian side,” said Prigozhin according to The Guardian, “and that they were going to attack us together with the whole NATO block.”

“When Zelensky became president,” he added, “he was ready for agreements. All that needed to be done was to get off Mount Olympus and negotiate with him.” He also refuted many of the Russian government’s top claims for why the war was initiated.

After the Friday attack, Prigozhin indicated that he would “punish” those responsible: “Those who destroyed our lads, who destroyed the lives of many tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, will be punished. I ask that no one offer resistance.” He continued, according to the Guardian: 

Wagner Commanders’ Council made a decision: the evil brought by the military leadership of the country must be stopped… Everyone who will try to resist, we will consider them a danger and destroy them immediately, including any checkpoints on our way. And any aviation that we see above our heads… I’m asking everyone to remain calm, do not succumb to provocations and remain in their houses. Ideally, those along our way, do not go outside. After we finished what we started, we will return to the frontline to protect our motherland… Anyone who wants should join. We need to end this mess… This is not a military coup, this is a march of justice. Our actions do not hinder the armed forces in any way.

What, exactly, Prigozhin intends to do is not known. Whatever he does, though, this is the strongest and most pointed verbal assault yet in what has become a battle between him and the country’s military brass, namely defense minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.

Wagner has become a major asset for Russia in its invasion, having taken the lead in its grinding assault on Bakhmut, which it claimed to capture in May. It numbers in the tens of thousands, of which convicts make up a large part.