Moscow (EFE) Russian Armed Forces, Valeri Gerasimov.
In a video posted on Telegram, Prigozhin shows rows of Wagnerite corpses lying on the ground and assures that the casualties would be less if they received the proper amount of ammunition: “these are the guys who died today, the blood is still fresh,” he says in his address.
According to the mercenary, they only have 30 percent of the ammunition they need, for which he blames Shoigu and Gerasimov directly.
“They came here as volunteers and die so that you can fatten in their mahogany offices,” says Prigozhin, addressing the Defense Minister and the Chief of the General Staff with various insults.
More than a hundred deaths in one day
The Wagnerites are the assault force used by Russia in the battle that has been waged for eight months for the city of Bakhmut (Artiomovsk, for the Russians), in eastern Ukraine.
According to Prigozhin, in a single day of fighting, 116 Wagnerites died due to a shortage of ammunition, which he described as “extremely serious.”
For months the head of the Wagner family has been denouncing that the Russian Ministry of Defense does not supply its units with the promised ammunition.
At the beginning of last March Prigozhin even threatened to withdraw his detachments from Bakhmut.
“If the Wagner private military company withdraws from Bakhmut, the entire front will collapse,” he said in a video posted on YouTube and warned that the collapse could reach “as far as the borders of Russia and, perhaps, beyond.”