(Moscow) The head of the Russian private military group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigojine, declared Sunday that his men, who fight in particular in Bakhmout (eastern Ukraine), lacked ammunition and warned that a Ukrainian counter-offensive could represent “ a tragedy” for Russia.
” We [Wagner] we only have 10-15% of the ammunition we need,” Wagner’s boss said in an interview with pro-Kremlin war correspondent Semyon Pegov.
Mr Prigozhin, who blamed senior Russian military officers for the shortages, said he expected a Ukrainian counter-offensive around mid-May. “This counter-offensive could become a tragedy for our country,” he warned.
The Wagner group was on the front line in the fighting around the city of Bakhmout.
Yevgeny Prigojine is in open conflict with the Russian military hierarchy, which he accuses of not knowingly delivering enough ammunition to his men and has publicly attacked Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on several occasions.
Ukraine said this week that its preparations for a counter-offensive were coming to an end.
On Sunday, the governor of the Russian region of Briansk bordering Ukraine announced that a Ukrainian bombardment having targeted a Russian village had left four dead and two wounded.
The day before, a drone attack caused a fire in an oil depot in Sevastopol, the home port of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, according to the authorities of the peninsula annexed by Russia.
Moscow replaces its military logistics chief
The Russian army announced on Sunday the appointment of a new head of military logistics, General Alexei Kuzmenkov, who replaces another high-ranking officer, General Mikhail Mizintsev, as Kyiv claims to have completed its preparations for a counteroffensive.
“General Alexei Kuzmenkov has been appointed Russian Deputy Minister of Defense, responsible for the material and technical supply of the Russian armed forces,” the army said in a statement.
Until now, Mr. Kuzmenkov was deputy director of the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia), a post he had held since 2019, according to the press release.
Alexeï Kouzmenkov thus replaces Mikhaïl Mizintsev, who was only appointed to this post last September.
Former head of the National Defense Control Center, Mr. Mizintsev, nicknamed by Western media “Butcher of Mariupol”, is targeted by Western sanctions for his role in the siege of Mariupol, a port city in the south-east of the Ukraine, devastated by the bombardments.
However, no official announcement of his dismissal has been made either by the Russian army or by the public media.
Russian logistics have often failed since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine launched in February 2022.
It was notably put to the test with President Vladimir Putin’s decision to mobilize several hundred thousand men last September, in an attempt to stem the setbacks suffered by the Russian army in the face of Ukrainian forces and the armament provided by Westerners.