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Russian strongman Yevgeny Prigozhin has threatened to attack Russian forces in retaliation for what he claims was an airstrike against his paramilitary forces, unleashing his fiercest tirade against his country’s military leadership yet.
Prigozhin, the founder of the notorious Wagner mercenary group, said in a video Friday that a “large number” of fighters were killed in the alleged airstrike and that Wagner would “respond to this evil” by launching a “march for justice” against the Russian military.
In response, Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said that the FSB, Russia’s main security service, had “initiated a criminal case over calls for an armed uprising”. “We demand that these illegal actions stop at once.”
The Russian Defense Ministry dismissed Prigozhin’s allegations as an “information provocation”. Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, said the Russian leader was aware of Prigozhin’s remarks and that “all essential measures are being taken,” without elaborating, according to RIA Novosti.
The threat comes just hours after Prigozhin accused the Russian military of tricking Putin into invading Ukraine in a separate sermon, signaling a new, more aggressive phase of the strongman’s offensive against Kremlin war planners.
The evil brought about by the country’s military leadership must be stopped. “Those who destroyed our children today and ruined the lives of tens of thousands of our soldiers will be punished,” Prigozhin said.
Without explaining what specific steps Wagner would take, Prigozhin added: “I ask that no one resist. We will consider everyone who resists a threat and we will destroy them simultaneously.
He claimed that “the presidential power, the government, (and) the other structures” would operate as usual, while Wagner would “deal with people destroying Russian soldiers and returning to the front”.
Prigozhin, who had emerged as one of the important leaders in the Russian invasion since Wagner played a leading role on the front lines, had been embroiled in a feud for several months with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, whom Prigozhin accused of sabotaging the war effort with Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of Russia.
He alleged that Shoigu secretly ordered the alleged air strikes, and then “ran off like a bitch to avoid explaining why he sent helicopters to destroy our boys.”
In an earlier video on Friday, Prigozhin alleged that the Russian Defense Ministry made false claims to trick Putin into invading Ukraine and said Moscow could have avoided the war entirely.
Prigozhin claimed Russia faced no immediate threat from Ukraine when Putin launched his all-out invasion last year and accused senior military officers of deceiving the president for personal gain.
Prigozhin’s regular speeches, in which he claims Russia risks losing the war after Ukraine launched a counteroffensive earlier this month, have suggested elite infighting has been getting fiercer as Moscow’s war effort continues.
Although Prigozhin notably refrained from personally criticizing Putin and supporting his war aims, the video marked the first time he publicly questioned the Russian rationale for an all-out invasion.
“There was nothing out of the ordinary on February 24,” Prigozhin said, referring to the day Putin ordered the invasion in 2022. “The Department of Defense is trying to deceive the president and society by saying that Ukraine is enraged by aggression and plans to attack us with the entire NATO bloc.”
Instead, Prigozhin alleged, Shoigu had convinced Putin that the war was necessary so that “a bunch of bastards could rule the roost and show off their mighty army”, and then botched the invasion through “incompetent planning”.
He added, “For some reason, this group of fools thought they were so clever that no one would understand what they were doing or stop them on their way to Kiev.”
In a country where “defaming the armed forces” is punishable by up to 15 years in prison, Prigozhin, who has known Putin since his days in St Petersburg in the early 1990s, is widely believed to have secured the Russian president’s approval for his attacks on the military.
Prigozhin’s bluster about the war’s failures has notably vindicated Putin himself or the FSB, which played a more prominent role in planning the invasion than the military.
Putin admitted earlier this month that he had personally pardoned those convicted so they could be released to fight in Ukraine — a recruitment technique pioneered by Prigozhin when he raised an army of prisoners to fight in the “meat grinder” of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
But after Russia captured the city last month, Putin backed Shoigu’s efforts to bring irregular units like Wagner under army control.
From then on, Wagner’s forces were absent from the front lines, and Prigozhin cast doubt on whether they would ever return.
He said the Russian military continues to lie to Putin about the success of Ukraine’s counterattack, and warned that it could lead the country to ruin on the battlefield.
“What they are telling us is a complete scam. We will only face the truth when (…) this group of bastards realizes that they have already moved a big piece of land and announce that they are regrouping somewhere better,” he said. “The enemy is penetrating deeper into our defenses.”