Vladimir Putin’s most deranged hail mary in his war against Ukraine seems to have now officially blown up in his face, as the leader of the private army he’s used to send thousands of inmates into the battlefield is now openly threatening leaders of the official Russian military.
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin offered a scathing response Tuesday to a video that surfaced days earlier in which Wagner mercenaries are seen cursing out Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces.
“To the Chief of the General Staff: you are a fucking motherfucker. We have nothing to fight with, we have no rounds. The guys are dying for us there, and we’re fucking sitting here, not helping. We need rounds, we want to fuck everyone up. We are fighting against the entire Ukrainian army near Bakhmut. Where are you? It’s about time you help us. There’s nothing else to fucking call you except motherfucker!” one of the fighters said in the video.
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While Russian media had suggested the men in the video might have actually been “Ukrainian nationalists” dressed up as Wagner fighters in a bid to undermine the war, Prigozhin quickly shot down that conspiracy theory.
“There are no [Ukrainian] nationalists in that notorious video,” Prigozhin said in an audio message shared on the official Telegram channel of his Concord Management’s press service.
He went on to confirm the men were fighters under his command—and backed up their message.
“The guys asked me to pass along, that when you’re sitting in a warm office, it’s hard to hear the problems on the frontline, but when you’re dragging the dead bodies of your friends every day, and seeing them for the last time, then supplies are very much needed. And you want everyone to stir and at least in some way to think about how it is for those on the frontline,” Prigozhin said.
“As for the problems that are unfortunately surfacing at every step… we will solve them, and force them to be solved,” he said.
Prigozhin’s comments are just his latest shots fired at top Russian defense officials over their handling of the war—and perhaps the starkest sign yet that the Kremlin has more to fear from infighting than it would ever have done from Ukraine if Putin had not launched his invasion.
