May 27, 2023
Former Russian commander Igor Girkin has claimed that Russia will face a "mutiny" from the Wagner Group and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.
The Wagner Group is among the most prominent mercenary outfits in Russia, with Prigozhin having a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The outfit has a strong presence in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, particularly in the battle for Bakhmut, in which Prigozhin claimed that thousands of his men were lost.
Prigozhin announced on Thursday that his fighters would be withdrawing from Bakhmut by June 1, handing over "positions, ammunition, everything including dry rations" to troops with the Russian military. In the process of announcing this move, the oligarch known as "Putin's cook" has also issued strong criticisms against Russian officials for their handling of Bakhmut and said that the invasion of Ukraine has backfired.
"With regard to demilitarization...if they had 500 tanks at the beginning of the special operation, [now] they have 5,000 tanks," Prigozhin said in a recent interview. "If they had 20,000 people able to fight skillfully, now 400,000 people know how to fight. How did we demilitarize it? It turns out that the opposite is true—we militarized her hell knows how."
In making these critical comments, Girkin, a major Russian nationalist and former commander of separatist forces in the Donbas region of Ukraine, said that Prigozhin was laying the ground for a "mutiny" and to carry out a "coup" against the Kremlin with Wagner forces.
Girkin's claims were circulated on Saturday on Twitter by WarTranslated, an organization that translates materials related to the invasion of Ukraine for worldwide circulation.
"Girkin accuses Prigozhin of preparing for a coup in Russia," the official WarTranslated account tweeted. "
He says the insults towards the Russian army by Putin's cook are unacceptable, and signal a rift in the elites which Prigozhin will take advantage of with his private army that is being withdrawn from Bakhmut. Girkin adds that if Russia misses the upcoming counter-offensive, the political situation in the country may become unrecongisable by the end of summer."
"If Prigozhin remains the head of Wagner, the mutiny will come quickly and radically," Girkin said in a video shared by WarTranslated. "A coup attempt has been declared...What will happen next, I don't know, especially as Wagner is urgently withdrawn to rear bases...The danger of a looming coup is clear."
Newsweek reached out to Russian officials via email for comment, and to foreign defense experts for insight.
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