Prigozchin initiates Wagner withdrawal from Bakhmut – and reports of 20,000 dead Russians US sends world’s largest aircraft carrier near Russia

The head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is notorious for his tantrums on camera. His anger was aimed at the Russian regime and Putin respectively. In early May, he raged that no real equipment was being made available, which is why “Russian sons and fathers” had died in the Battle of Bakhmut.

To make his words clear, he does not hesitate to successively drape the corpses of the Russian sons and fathers in the background on the floor like a macabre backdrop.

On the eve of May 9 – in Russia, the “Day of Victory” over Nazi Germany – the founder of the Wagner Group again called for more grenades and even threatened to withdraw his people from Bakhmut. Simultaneously with Putin’s “Victory Day” speech, he published another 27-minute video criticizing the military leadership of the Russian Federation.

The city of Bakhmut is now largely occupied by the Russians. And on Thursday, Prigozhin began to withdraw his mercenaries from Bakhmut, where the official Russian army was now supposed to take over. He also announced this in a video on his Telegram channel.

In the video, Prigozhin sneaks through the devastated Bakhmut and talks to groups of his men. He announces to them that the recording must be completed before June 1. He says to three young men on a tank, “We start in 10 to 15 minutes” – the soldiers nod willingly.

After leaving Bachmut, the video shows, the Wagner will take a break, repair equipment and recruit new mercenaries – then “start a new job”.

20,000 dead Wagner mercenaries

But before the withdrawal, the Wagner boss took another step against the Russian regime. In a video interview published on Tuesday on his Telegram channel, he gave figures on Wagner’s losses in Bakhmut: 20,000 Russian fighters were killed in this battle alone. His conclusion: the sons of the poor are “sent home from the front in zinc coffins”, while the children of the elite “sun their bottoms”.

20,000 is a high number if you compare the official Russian figures. Last October, the Russian Ministry of Defense spoke of 5,937 fallen soldiers. That was the last officially communicated number.

SRF recently revealed that about 40,000 Russians have been killed based on leaked classified US military documents. The 20,000 Wagner mercenaries would thus account for about half of all the dead on the Russian side. This is also not surprising, because “especially the Wagner mercenary group sent some of their fighters – wave after wave – to certain death,” explains SRF expert David Nauer, who explains the high figure of 40,000 Russian dead.

In an interview, Prigozhin predicts a next revolution in Russia because of the many deaths. He says:

Perhaps the next task of Prigozhin and the mercenaries after the capture of Bakhmut is to crush this revolution.

(yum)