Ukraine: Wagner boss to pull out of Bakhmut over ammunitions rationing

Russian mercernary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin targets Russian defence leadership over lack of ammunition ahead of suspected Ukrainian counter-offensive

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin

The leader of the private Russian military group Wagner has announced a withdrawal of his troops from the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, in a row over ammunition.

Yevgeny Prigozhin accused the Russian defence ministry of denying him ample ammuniation in a gruesome video of him walking among dead fighters’ bodies.

Russia has been trying to capture the city for months, despite its questionable strategic value. “Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where is the... ammunition?... They came here as volunteers and die for you to fatten yourselves in your mahogany offices,” Prigozhin said, referring to defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.

The Kremlin declined to comment on the video.

The battle for Bakhmut has dragged for months and is thought to have claimed thousands of lives.

Wagner troops and regular Russian forces have fought on the same side, against the Ukrainian military. Ukraine decided to defend the city at all costs in an apparent attempt to focus Russian military resources on one place of relatively little significance.

In his new announcement, standing in front of his men, Prigozhin said he would be “obliged to transfer positions in the settlement of Bakhmut to units of the defence ministry and withdraw the remains of Wagner to logistics camps to lick our wounds.”

“Because of the lack of ammunition, our losses are increasing exponentially every day... My lads will not suffer useless and unjustified losses in Bakhmut without ammunition.”

Russia is believed to be rationing ammunition ahead of Ukraine’s long anticipated counter-offensive, which Prigozhin believes will begin by 15 May, as tanks and artillery will be able to advance in dry weather, after the last spring rain.

In a separate move, Prigozhin appears to have hired the recently dismissed “butcher of Mariupol” – Col-Gen Mikhail Mizintsev – as deputy to a Wagner commander.