Putin has led Russia to failure with his invasion, says Wagner mercenary chief

Vladimir Putin has led Russia to abject failure with his invasion of Ukraine, the head of the Russian Wagner mercenary group has said in an astonishing outburst.

Far from demilitarising Ukraine – Russia’s key war aim – Putin’s botched strategy has seen Kyiv amass ‘one of the world’s strongest armies’ through massive Western supplies, Yevgeny Prigozhin said.

The Wagner chief was once considered a close ally and confidant of Russia’s tyrant and had been nicknamed Putin’s ‘chef’. But in the latest of his increasingly frequent outbursts, Prigozhin has given a devastating critique of his war strategy.

He then warned of impending ‘revolution’ in Russia unless changes were made by the Kremlin leadership.

In an astonishing attack on military leaders, he said Russia would restore the death penalty and the guilty – he named defence ministry Sergei Shoigu and chief of the defence staff Valery Gerasimov as responsible for the war crisis – would be ‘hanged on Red Square’.

Prigozhin blamed both Shoigu and Gerasimov for losing more men in Bakhmut than in the entire ten-year Soviet war in Afghanistan from 1979-89, which eventually led to the collapse of the USSR.

‘So the de-nazification of Ukraine, which we announced – we made Ukraine a nation, known to everyone around the globe,’ he said, mocking Putin’s warped purpose for going to war.

‘They are like Greeks at their peak, or Romans.’

He told interviewer Konstantin Dolgov – a prominent pro-war blogger: ‘We legitimised Ukraine, it became a country which is known to everyone.

‘As for de-militarisation… [this is] a painful issue indeed.

‘So if they had at the start of it 500 tanks – now they have 5,000. If there were 20,000 men who were able to fight – now there are 400,000. So how exactly did we demilitarise it?

‘Quite the opposite! We militarised it up to the brim.

‘I think Ukrainians today are one of the world’s strongest armies. They have high levels of organisation, training, military intelligence. 

‘They have various ammunition and moreover, they are able to switch between any system – Soviet, Nato, anything at all – with the same success. They take their losses philosophically.

‘All they do is to achieve the supreme goal, just like us during the Great Patriotic War [Second World War].’

Prigozhin’s armed force of convicts and volunteers – named Wagner private military company – has claimed to have taken Bakhmut but at a devastating toll.

He admitted that in Bakhmut his force had lost 10,000 prisoners freed to fight for Putin, and the same number of volunteers. Many experts estimate the Wagner losses to be higher.

Prigozhin then claimed Ukraine had lost 50,000 with 70,000 wounded.

‘During the [special military operation] I pulled out 50,000 inmates from jails,’ he said. Twenty per cent of them died.’

Adding to the latest of his outbursts, Prigozhin said he saw Shoigu and Gerasimov as guilty, not least for failing to supply Wagner with ammunition and weapons.

‘Without a doubt the death penalty will be brought back, because we are in a state of war,’ he said.

And the guilty people will receive their punishment – as a minimum, they’ll be hanged on the Red Square.’

He lambasted the comfortable elites in Russia who continued to live normally while cannon fodder troops at the front lost their lives in huge numbers.

Their sons must be forced to the war, he said.

He singled out the defence minister Sergei Shoigu, whose daughter and son -in-law flaunt their wealth on social media.

While last year it emerged the foreign minister Sergey Lavrov’s stepdaughter owns a £4 million luxury apartment in Kensington, London.

Mr Prigozhin said: ‘Everything might end as in 1917, with a revolution, when first the soldiers rise up and then their loved ones.

‘The children of the elite smear themselves with creams and show off on the internet, while ordinary people’s children come home in zinc [coffins] torn to pieces.

‘I recommend the elite of the Russian Federation gathers up its youth and sends them to war. They live fat, carefree lives, their villas should be stormed by ordinary people armed with pitchforks.

‘How can Shoigu’s son-in-law go to the United Arab Emirates and shake his bum around?’

Prigozhin warned of the real threat of Russia losing the war.

The warlord said he now ‘hardly believes’ it possible that Russia can see through one of the most optimistic scenarios of holding on to the territory it now has.

The ‘pessimistic scenario’, he said, is that Ukraine can ‘restore the 2014 borders, they will try to attack Crimea, destroy the Crimean Bridge, and cut off routes of supply. 

‘And most likely the scenario won’t be good for us,’ he said.

Russia ‘must prepare for a heavy war. What must we do – not to lose Russia? Because today we are in a state when we can lose Russia.

‘We must introduce martial law. We must call new waves of mobilisation. We must switch everyone to production of weapons.

‘Stop building skyscrapers, new roads, new infrastructure – and work only for the war. We must live like in North Korea for several years, and shut the borders.’

Analysts are also suggesting the head of Russia’s private army could be the man to topple Putin, by standing against him in next year’s presidential elections. 

The Kremlin is understood to be growing increasingly concerned by Prigozhin’s criticisms and his popularity.

At the May 9th Victory Day parade in Moscow, Putin pointedly excluded the Wagner group from his speech praising the efforts of Russian soldiers.

But without the paramilitary group’s soldiers, Russia’s campaign in Ukraine would collapse.