The Russian Wagner Group has just issued a surprisingly defiant statement against Vladimir Putin amid growing tensions between the mercenaries and the Kremlin.
Shortly after the Russian president called for volunteer fighters to sign up on a contract with Moscow, Yevgeny Prigozhin said that would be like going down the “path of shame” for Wagner, a group which he bankrolls.
Speaking on Wednesday, the mercenary leader said: “None of Wagner’s fighters is ready to go down the path of shame again. That’s why they will not sign the contracts.”
But, Prigozhin did then try to row back a little, by saying he thought a “compromise solution” was possible between the Wagner group, Putin and parliament which would offer his fighters social guarantees and certified status as combatants.
The UK’s ministry of defence said in its latest update that his “rhetoric is evolving into defiance of broader sections of the Russian establishment”.
It added that July 1, the deadline for volunteers to sign contracts with the Russia government, “is likely to be a key way-point in the feud”.
On Tuesday, Putin had made it clear that he backed his defence ministry’s call for all volunteer fighters to commit to contracts.
Putin said in a televised address that these contracts were necessary to allow fighters to get social support payments, including compensation if they’re wounded and payments to their families if they’re killed in action.
This public order has been perceived as Moscow’s attempt to control Wagner, which has been leading some parts of the Russian invasion recently – despite being independent of the government.
The Wagner group has also taken credit for several of Russia’s successes in the Ukraine invasion – particularly in the bloody battlefields around the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut.
Private military contractors are forbidden in Russia, so the whole group works outside of the country’s law – something which, until now, Moscow has overlooked because it allows Russia to have indirect influence overseas.
As their military success became increasingly apparent, Prigozhin has become more and more outspoken when it comes to the Kremlin’s handling of the war in Ukraine.
He even accused Russian military chiefs of “treason” in February by denying his fighters adequate ammunition.
However, up until now, he’s steered clear of putting himself in direct opposition to anything Putin himself has said, instead criticising the defence minister Sergei Shoigu and other top army brass.
He warned in May that if the general Russian public kept seeing their children die in Ukraine while the children of he elite “shook their arses” in the sun, there would be a return to the 1917 revolution when the poor rebelled against the aristocracy.
Prigozhin said: “This divide can end as in 1917 with a revolution – first the soldiers will stand up, and after that – their loved ones will rise up.
“There are already tens of thousands of them – relatives of those killed, and there will probably be hundreds of thousands.”
During that same interview, he made a point of saying: “I love my motherland, I serve Putin” – while alleging that the military had “fucked up” throughout the war and failed in its aims to demilitarise the country.
The Wagner Group really took off in 2014, the same year Russia seized the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and separatists in the Donbas region started to push back against the Ukrainian government.
Prigozhin actually only admitted that he founded the group back in September 2022, but has since publicly accused the Russian ministry of “constantly trying to steal Wagner’s victory”.