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Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is lying to President Vladimir Putin about "colossal" battlefield failures in Ukraine, Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Thursday, ramping up his criticism of the country's military leadership.
Prigozhin made the remarks in an audio message posted via the press service of his company Concord. He was responding to a question from a Russian news outlet about why his claims about Ukrainian advances in the Zaporizhzhia region, as part of a counteroffensive, haven't been reflected by the Russian Defense Ministry or the Kremlin.
The Wagner Group chief's public feud with Russian officials within the Kremlin is nearing a pivotal moment, with his rhetoric evolving into defiance toward broader sections of the Russian establishment, according to the British Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Prigozhin's notorious paramilitary outfit played a critical role in Russia's efforts to seize the industrial town of Bakhmut in Ukraine's eastern region. He ramped up public criticism of Russia's military leadership, including Shoigu, before his troops withdrew from Bakhmut this month. Prigozhin has accused him of intentionally depriving his fighters of ammunition and support.
"I'll explain why [my words] differ [from the official data]," Prigozhin began.
"Because they are bringing total c**p to the president's desk, [it's] shameless," he said. "When we took Bakhmut, we let all military correspondents go there, you remember this well, so that they see the real state of affairs."
"No one talks about thousands of destroyed tanks and armored vehicles. They don't let anyone in there [in Bakhmut], they don't show anything precisely because there are colossal problems there."
"Shoigu and Gerasimov have a simple approach: a lie needs to be monstrous to be believed in. This is what they do," Prigozhin said, referring to the chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, who heads Russia's campaign in Ukraine.
His latest tirade aimed at Shoigu comes amid a spat over an order issued by the Defense Ministry that members of "volunteer formations" such as the Wagner Group sign contracts directly with the Russian Federation by July 1.
After Prigozhin rejected Shoigu's orders, Putin said during a meeting with pro-war bloggers that his defense minister's initiative "has to be done and it has to be done as quickly as possible."
The move is "in line with common sense, with established practice and the law," Putin said.
The British MoD has said Prigozhin's rhetoric is evolving into defiance of broader sections of the Russian establishment, and that the deadline for the volunteers to sign contracts is likely to be a key point in the feud.
Vlad Mykhnenko, an expert in the post-communist transformation of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union at the U.K.'s University of Oxford, told Newsweek that Prigozhin is "rapidly turning into another [former Russian commander Igor Girkin]—a harsh critic of the Russian war effort and the military but who has been pushed to the margins of social media and Telegram channels."
"I suspect that his strategy would be not to sign the contract, so that he won't be sent back to the front line [in Ukraine]—regroup and replenish—and then trying to escape 'back to Africa'," said Mykhnenko.
He added: "But without access to Putin, without access to the Defense Ministry's arsenals, manpower and catering contracts, I am not sure how long he and Wagner would last."
Newsweek has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry via email for comment.
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About the writer
Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more