Wagner Chief Appears to Backtrack on Threat to Pull Fighters From Bakhmut

NYT WORLD: Wagner Chief Appears to Backtrack on Threat to Pull Fighters From Bakhmut
By Neil MacFarquhar, Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Andrés R. Martínez
Section: World
Source: New York Times
Published Date: May 7, 2023 at 03:00AM

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin said his mercenaries had been promised the ammunition and equipment they needed and would not have to withdraw from Russia’s fight for the eastern Ukrainian city.

The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group said on Sunday that he had been promised as much ammunition and weaponry as needed to continue the fight for the embattled Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, two days after he threatened to withdraw his fighters because Moscow’s Ministry of Defense was failing to support them. “We have been promised as much ammunition and armament as we need to keep going,” the Wagner group’s founder, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, said in an audio statement released Sunday on his channel on the Telegram messaging app. There was no immediate comment from Russia’s defense ministry. On Friday, Mr. Prigozhin launched what was widely considered an effort at brinkmanship, by threatening to withdraw all of his fighters from Bakhmut, accusing Russia’s military bureaucracy of starving him of the ammunition needed to fully capture the city. He had appeared in a gruesome video standing in front of row after row of what he said were freshly killed fighters, saying the ministry had caused “useless and unjustified” losses by failing to replenish the ammunition stocks. While Mr. Prigozhin had complained about ammunition shortages and threatened to pull out of the city before, he had not previously given a date. This time, he named Wednesday — the day after Russia’s Victory Day holiday — as the deadline for his forces to withdraw and “lick their wounds.” The May 9 holiday celebrates the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany and has taken on particular resonance in Russia amid its war in Ukraine. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, wrote on Telegram on Sunday that he had visited troops in the area of Bakhmut, where he previously said Russia was employing “scorched-earth tactics.” The shelling has intensified, he said, as Russia attempts to seize the city by Tuesday.

Read More at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/07/world/europe/russia-ukraine-crimea.html

Wagner chief backtracks on withdrawal threat , ThThe chief of Wagner, Russia's mercenary group, claims his forces will not pull out of Bakhmut after Moscow promised them ammunition.The chief of Wagner, Russia's mercenary group, claims his forces will not pull out of Bakhmut after Moscow promised them ammunition.