The head of private military company Wagner said Friday he will pull his fighters out of the battle of Bakhmut because Moscow is not supplying them with the ammunition they need.
“I am withdrawing the units of PMC Wagner from Bakhmut because, in the absence of ammunition, they are doomed to senseless death,” Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin announced in a video Friday on Telegraph as he stood in front of a group of Wagner fighters at an undisclosed location, NBC News reported.
“I declare on behalf of the Wagner fighters, on behalf of the Wagner command, that on May 10, 2023, we are obliged to transfer positions in the settlement of Bakhmut to units of the Defense Ministry and withdraw the remains of Wagner to logistics camps to lick our wounds,” he said in Friday’s post.
The announcement came hours after Prigozhin released an expletive-laden video Thursday, also on Telegraph, where he showed himself surrounded by dozens of dead bodies while blaming Moscow for the heavy losses by his fighters.
In Thursday night’s video, Prigozhin said the bodies of his fighters that were shown came from just one day of fighting in the Bakhmut region, and he blamed the “fat cats” in Russia’s military leadership, CNN reported.
“We are lacking 70% of the needed ammunition,” Prigozhin says in the video while shining a flashlight on the bodies lying outdoors near what looks to be the front lines of the war.
