The founder of the Wagner mercenary group delivered a scathing critique of the outcome of President Vladimir Putin’s war goals in Ukraine, highlighting growing nationalist anger at Russia’s faltering 15-month invasion.
(Bloomberg) — The founder of the Wagner mercenary group delivered a scathing critique of the outcome of President Vladimir Putin’s war goals in Ukraine, highlighting growing nationalist anger at Russia’s faltering 15-month invasion.
Yevgeny Prigozhin heaped praise on the performance of Ukraine’s military and scorned the “denazification and demilitarization” goals that Putin and top Kremlin officials used as justification for the war. He renewed a feud with Russia’s top defense officials, accusing them of leaving the country unprotected following a border incursion by attackers who crossed from Ukraine.
“The denazification we’re talking about legitimized Ukraine, it led to Ukraine being a nation known all over the world,” Prigozhin said, during a more than hour-long interview posted on his Telegram channel Wednesday. “How did we demilitarize it? We actually militarized it. It’s now one of the strongest armies.”
Prigozhin, whose forces claimed to have taken the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut at the weekend after months of intense fighting, has helped advance the Kremlin’s interests from the Middle East to Africa and Latin America. He’s grown increasingly outspoken about Russia’s military performance as Ukraine readies a counteroffensive aiming to drive Moscow’s forces out of the east and south of the country.
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Until now, though, the mercenary chief had steered clear of questioning the Russian president’s overall strategy. His latest comments appeared to take a different tack.
“Somehow we don’t get anything right,” Prigozhin said, listing a series of Russian reverses since the army failed to seize Kyiv early in the February 2022 invasion. While Soviet dictator Josef Stalin would have executed 200 people for the military’s performance, “we haven’t drawn any conclusions so far,” he said.
Prigozhin’s criticisms are a sign of tensions within Russia between the Defense Ministry and the Federal Security Service over who is to blame for the failure to win the war so far, according to Kirill Rogov, director of Re:Russia, a Vienna-based think tank.
The Russian assault bolstered Ukraine’s global standing and transformed its military into a far more powerful force with help from billions of dollars in US and European weapon supplies, Prigozhin said. If, theoretically, “they had 20,000 people who knew how to fight, now they have 400,000,” he said, adding that Ukraine’s military had high levels of organization, training and intelligence services.
In response, Prigozhin said, Russia should declare martial law, implement a new wave of mobilization to draft more troops, and focus the country’s entire resources on fighting the war.
Pointing to the attack in Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine that began Monday, Prigozhin accused the military of weak defenses.
“They easily crossed the border, they could be in Moscow tomorrow,” he said.
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