The feud between Russia’s authorities and Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the outspoken mercenary tycoon, escalated sharply on Friday, as Mr. Prigozhin accused the navy of attacking his forces, vowed to retaliate and declared on social media that Russia’s “evil” navy management “must be stopped.” Russian legislation enforcement instantly accused him of fomenting an “armed rebellion.”
There was no speedy signal the battle between the mercenary chief and navy leaders would ignite armed clashes on the bottom in Russia, however the fast-moving developments late Friday night represented probably the most dramatic inner battle contained in the nation to spill into the open since President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine started 16 months in the past.
“The evil carried by the country’s military leadership must be stopped,” Mr. Prigozhin mentioned in one in all a sequence of voice recordings posted to the Telegram social community after 9 p.m. Moscow time.
Minutes later, he advised that his Wagner mercenary power was ready to go on the offensive in opposition to Russia’s personal Defense Ministry, saying, “There’s 25,000 of us, and we are going to figure out why chaos is happening in the country.”
Russia’s Anti-Terrorism Committee, a legislation enforcement physique, rapidly issued a press release asserting that “the allegations spread on behalf of Yevgeny Prigozhin have no basis.”
“In connection with these statements, the F.S.B. of Russia initiated a criminal case on suspicion of calling for an armed rebellion,” the committee mentioned, referring to the initials for Russia’s home intelligence company. “We demand an immediate stop to these unlawful actions.”
Mr. Prigozhin has attacked the Defense Ministry for months, asserting that Russia’s prime brass have refused to offer Wagner forces with wanted ammunition whilst they fought alongside the Russian navy for management of the Ukrainian metropolis of Bakhmut. But on Friday, he took his accusations to a brand new degree, claiming that the Russian navy had attacked Wagner encampments, killing “a huge number of fighters.”
In a 30-minute video launched earlier within the day, Mr. Prigozhin had described his nation’s invasion of Ukraine as a “racket” perpetrated by a corrupt elite chasing cash and glory with out concern for Russian lives.
For months the Russian battle effort has been hampered by the bitter feud between Mr. Prigozhin and prime navy leaders, whom he has accused in scathing phrases of incompetence in conducting the battle.
But the accusations Mr. Prigozhin leveled in audio and videotaped messages posted on Friday raised the stakes. Never earlier than had Mr. Prigozhin accused Russia’s navy leaders of attacking his forces, nor had asserted in such stark phrases that the Kremlin’s acknowledged justification for the battle was nonsense.
He accused the Russian minister of protection, Sergei Okay. Shoigu, of orchestrating a lethal assault with missiles and helicopters on camps to the rear of the Russian traces in Ukraine, the place his troopers of fortune had been bivouacked. And he accused Mr. Shoigu of overseeing the strikes himself from the city of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, close to Ukraine.
The mercenary chief’s claims couldn’t be instantly verified. The Russian protection ministry denied the allegations, saying in a press release that the messages Mr. Prigozhin had posted about supposed strikes on Wagner camps “do not correspond to reality.”
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, mentioned that Mr. Putin was “aware of all events around Prigozhin,” in accordance with Interfax, a Russian news company.
Mr. Prigozhin’s accusations created a ripple impact amongst Russian pro-war activists, who worry that an open battle between the military and Wagner forces might threaten the Russian entrance traces through the Ukrainian counteroffensive. In Ukraine, some seen his statements as extra proof of inner divisions inside the Russian battle effort.
In an earlier videotaped speech, Mr. Prigozhin didn’t explicitly impugn Mr. Putin, as a substitute casting him as a pacesetter being misled by his officers. But in dismissing the Kremlin’s narrative that the invasion was an existential necessity for the Russian nation, Mr. Prigozhin went farther than anybody in Russia’s safety institution in publicly difficult the knowledge of the battle.
“The war wasn’t needed to return Russian citizens to our bosom, nor to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine,” Mr. Prigozhin mentioned, referring to Mr. Putin’s preliminary justifications for the battle. “The war was needed so that a bunch of animals could simply exult in glory.”
Friday’s diatribes deepened the enigma of Mr. Prigozhin’s ambiguous function in Mr. Putin’s system. His Wagner troops, composed of veteran fighters in addition to hundreds of convicts whom Mr. Prigozhin personally recruited from Russian prisons, proved key in capturing the Ukrainian metropolis of Bakhmut in May after a monthslong battle.
But, through the battle for Bakhmut, Mr. Prigozhin additionally emerged as a populist political determine, excoriating Russia’s navy management for corruption and for not offering his forces with sufficient ammunition. His offended recordings and movies posted to the Telegram messaging community solid prime navy and Kremlin officers as unaware and uncaring of the struggles of normal Russian troopers.
So far, Mr. Putin has not reined in Mr. Prigozhin, whilst his safety forces have jailed or fined hundreds of Russians for criticizing the navy or opposing the battle. Some individuals who know Mr. Putin have mentioned they consider that he nonetheless sees Mr. Prigozhin as a loyal servant making use of wanted strain on a sprawling navy equipment. Others theorize that the Kremlin has orchestrated Mr. Prigozhin’s tirades in opposition to Mr. Shoigu, the protection minister, to deflect blame from Mr. Putin himself.
But Friday’s statements difficult the image, with Mr. Prigozhin going after not simply Mr. Shoigu but in addition unnamed “oligarchs” round Mr. Putin, whereas casting all the official rhetoric across the invasion as a sham. He mentioned there was “nothing out of the ordinary” in Ukraine’s navy posture on the eve of the February 2022 invasion — difficult the Kremlin’s justification that Ukraine was on the verge of attacking Russian-backed separatist territory in Ukraine’s east.
“Our holy war with those who offend the Russian people, with those who are trying to humiliate them, has turned into a racket,” he mentioned.
The feedback come as Russia fights to carry again Ukraine’s counteroffensive — a combat that Mr. Prigozhin asserted in his video was going rather more poorly for Russia than the federal government was letting on. On Telegram, pro-war commentators rapidly pushed again in opposition to that assertion, together with Igor Girkin, a former paramilitary commander who himself has usually criticized Russia’s prime brass.
“Prigozhin already should have been handed over to a military tribunal for many things,” Mr. Girkin wrote. “Now also for treason.”
Source: www.nytimes.com