The head of the Wagener Group suggests that the Russian Army is lying to Putin about the situation at the front

June 22 () –

The head of the Wagner Group mercenaries, Yevgeni Prigozhin, suggested on Thursday that Russia’s top military commanders would be lying to President Vladimir Putin about the situation at the front.

When questioned about his statements about the presence of Ukrainian troops just 25 kilometers from the Zaporizhia front and the confusion that they would have caused in public opinion, Prigozhin replied that there is a lot of “garbage” that reaches the President Putin’s table.

“When we took Bakhmut, we let all the war correspondents go there, they remember it well, so that they could see the real state of things. At that time, nobody talked about thousands of destroyed tanks and armored vehicles,” he said in his press service on Telegram.

Prigozhin has pointed out that now “they do not let anyone in” in Bakhmut and that if they do not allow to show anything of what is happening there it is “because there are colossal problems”. In this sense, he has blamed the Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the Chief of the General Staff, Valeri Guerasimov, for this alleged lack of transparency.

“Shoigu and Gerasimov’s approach is simple; a lie must be monstrous to be believed and that is what they do,” said Prigozhin, who has fallen from grace in recent weeks after his deep clashes with the Russian army.

The presence of the Wagner Group has been dwindling in recent months after conflicts broke out between the mercenary company and the high command of the Russian Army, including Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, with whom he maintains a bitter enmity.

After being a fundamental piece in the capture of Bakhmut, Prigozhin announced the gradual departure of his men due to the differences with the Russian Army, leaving control of the city and its surroundings in the hands of the regular troops as they faced the forces Ukrainians, who have already recovered large areas.