Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin mentioned on Friday that the Kremlin’s rationale for invading Ukraine was based mostly on lies concocted by his perennial adversary – the military’s prime brass.
Prigozhin, whose frequent tirades on social media belie his restricted position within the battle as head of the Wagner non-public army firm, has for months been overtly accusing Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s prime common, Valery Gerasimov, of rank incompetence.
But on Friday he for the primary time dismissed Russia’s core justifications for invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 final 12 months in what it calls a “special military operation”, in a video clip launched on Telegram by his press service.
“There was nothing out of the ordinary happening on Feb. 24 … the Defence Ministry is trying to deceive society and the president and tell us a story about how there was crazy aggression from Ukraine and that they were planning to attack us with the whole of NATO,” Prigozhin mentioned, calling the official model “a beautiful story”.
“The war was needed … so that Shoigu could become a marshal … so that he could get a second ‘Hero’ [of Russia] medal. The war wasn’t needed to demilitarise or denazify Ukraine.”
Sitting on a chair with a large black Wagner flag behind him, Prigozhin mentioned the battle had additionally been wanted to counterpoint the ruling elite who, he mentioned, weren’t happy with the industrial potential of a part of Ukraine’s Donbas area that Moscow seized management of in 2014 through a proxy separatist power.
“The task was to divide material assets (in Ukraine),” he mentioned. “There was massive theft in the Donbas, but they wanted more.”
CONTRADICTING PUTIN
Wagner spearheaded Russia’s seize of the Ukrainian metropolis of Bakhmut final month, and Prigozhin has used its battlefield success – achieved at huge human price – to publicly criticise Moscow with seeming impunity.
He has not, nonetheless, criticised President Vladimir Putin, on whose help he in the end relies upon.
Yet his newest assertion instantly contradicts the rationale proclaimed by Putin, who mentioned when sending his tanks into Ukraine that it was to demilitarise and “denazify” a rustic that posed a menace to Russia, an allegation denied by Kyiv.
It is a story that Russian authorities defend with fines or jail phrases for these deemed to have unfold “falsehoods” in regards to the battle.
There was no fast response from the Defence Ministry, which has ignored earlier complaints from Prigozhin, in public a minimum of. Nor was there any fast response from the Kremlin, which has additionally declined prior to now to touch upon Prigozhin’s outbursts.
Putin has, nonetheless, backed a Defence Ministry order, which Prigozhin opposes, that mercenary teams like Wagner should signal contracts placing themselves beneath ministry management by July 1.
Some Russian analysts have speculated that Prigozhin has political ambitions and could also be angling to switch Shoigu, an concept he has at all times performed down.
On Thursday, he had accused the highest brass of mendacity to Putin and the Russian folks in regards to the scale of Russian losses and setbacks in Ukraine.
In Friday’s video, he mentioned Moscow may have struck a cope with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy earlier than the battle, that the battle had been a catastrophe for Russia, and that tens of hundreds of younger lives had been sacrificed needlessly, together with members of Russia’s most succesful forces.
Portraying the highest brass as vodka- and cognac-swilling fools who lunch on caviar, he alleged the Russian battle effort was being hobbled by corruption.
“We are bathing in our own blood,” he mentioned. “Time is running out fast.”
Source: www.anews.com.tr
