"This is high treason": Wagner boss Prigoschin wedges against Shoigu

For weeks, the Wagner mercenary group has had to accept massive losses in their attempt to occupy the city of Bachmut.

"This is high treason": Wagner boss Prigoschin wedges against Shoigu

For weeks, the Wagner mercenary group has had to accept massive losses in their attempt to occupy the city of Bachmut. Once again, their boss complains about what he sees as a lack of support from Moscow. He directs massive allegations to the Ministry of Defense.

The head of the Russian Wagner mercenary force, Yevgeny Prigozhin, accuses Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of depriving his fighters of ammunition and wanting to destroy the Wagner units. This is tantamount to high treason, Prigozhin explained in a voice message published on his Telegram channel. Prigozhin has repeatedly criticized the Defense Ministry and accused senior army commanders of incompetence. "There is simply a direct opposition," said Prigozhin. "That is tantamount to high treason."

It is the second such message that Prigozhin has published within two days. The day before he had complained that unnamed government employees had refused deliveries to his Wagner units out of personal hostility towards him. Apparently angry, and at times raising his voice, Prigozhin now accused Shoigu and Gerasimov of deliberately causing the arms shortages, which he said led to increased casualties among Wagner units fighting for the eastern Ukrainian town of Bakhmut. The two would order not only not to give Wagner any ammunition, but also not to help the mercenary force with air transport.

A week ago, Prigozhin also complained that the slow progress in the Bakhmut battle was due to bureaucratic obstacles. "I think we would have taken Bachmut if it weren't for this monstrous military bureaucracy and if there weren't obstacles thrown in our way every day," he said in a video. For the Wagner group, it was a "bloodletting" that they could no longer recruit prisoners who would go to the front in return for an amnesty. "Eventually the number of units will decrease and, as a consequence, the volume of tasks that we want to carry out."

The US recently estimated that more than 30,000 members of the Wagner mercenary force had been killed or injured in Ukraine since mid-December. "During the fighting in Ukraine, we have now estimated that Wagner suffered more than 30,000 casualties, including some 9,000 killed," US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

About half of the fallen have been killed since mid-December. According to estimates, around 90 percent of the Wagner fighters killed in the fighting in December alone were convicts. Wagner boss Prigoshin had recruited new fighters primarily in prisons.

Group Wagner fighters are at the forefront of Moscow's offensive in Ukraine. Before the conflict in Ukraine, Wagner mercenaries had been seen in Syria, Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic.