Wagner boss Prigozhin rages at Kremlin: ‘Will wake up and Crimea is Ukrainian’ Biden asks for (almost) vegetarian state banquet for Modi

That the head of Wagner’s mercenary unit, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has criticized the military leadership is nothing new. For weeks, even months, he repeatedly fired directly at Putin.

The Wagner Group is in charge of Russia’s dirtier deals. While the Kremlin still denies having anything to do with the mercenaries’ machinations, Prigozhin has been referred to as “Putin’s cook.”

For example, there was the military operation “Meat Grinder” in the long-controversial eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Many Russian soldiers were also killed there.

However, the name brought him a company that also operates catering in the Kremlin: Concord Management and Consulting Group. Prigozhin repeatedly posts videos and audio messages online on Telegram through their account.

Prigozhin recently blamed the Kremlin for running out of mercenaries and ammunition.

In one video he stood in front of a mountain of corpses, which he kept pointing at in between to clarify what the problem was.

In an audio message on Telegram, Prigozhin followed again and aimed all the way to the top.

Prigozhin warns about losing Crimea – and attacks Shoigu

Hardly a day goes by that Prigozhin doesn’t rant against the Kremlin – especially since he declared in mid-May that he had taken Bakhmut.

Now, however, the Wagner boss accuses the military leadership of deliberately hiding Russian losses and urgently warns that Russia could lose Crimea.

The Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014 and later incorporated into its own territory in violation of international rules.

“If it continues like this, one day the Russians will wake up and Crimea will be Ukrainian,” Prigozhin said in the audio message. “If this continues, we will be without the most important thing: without Russia.”

The audio message was published on Telegram in response to a request from the editors of the Russian portal «Mos.News». “Ukraine’s deputy defense minister Anna Malyar said today that the counter-offensive by the Ukrainian armed forces is going ‘according to plan.’ Please comment on your words,” it read.

Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Ministry of the Interior, says Prigozhin is panicked about the situation at the front.

In his four-minute audio message, Prigozhin went one step further and directly attacked the military leadership. He accuses the Kremlin of lying to the people, especially about the course of the Ukrainian counter-offensive.

“You’re lying to the people,” he said angrily. Ukraine recently launched its long-awaited and highly publicized counter-offensive in southern and eastern Ukraine. Putin dismissed this as a failure, repeatedly reminding that everything was going according to plan with his own troops.

Meanwhile, Prigozhin accuses the Russian Ministry of Defense of Sergei Shoigu of inaction. In the message, he recalled the dead sailors of the cruiser Moskva, which Russia lost last spring. This left Shoigu in the lurch. The ship was one of Putin’s flagships – the sinking was a major setback.

So far there apparently have been no visible sanctions over Prigozhin’s hate speech against the Kremlin. But according to Gerashchenko, there has been a meeting between Putin and Prigozhin in recent days. In it, the Russian ruler is said to have made it clear to the mercenary boss that he had to submit to Shoigu. However, this information cannot be independently verified.