Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Friday (June 23) that the official Kremlin-backed version of why Moscow started its "special military opera...

From the video description:

Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Friday (June 23) that the official Kremlin-backed version of why Moscow started its ‘special military operation’ against Ukraine was based on lies concocted by his perennial adversary - the army’s top brass.

Prigozhin has for months been accusing Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, of rank incompetence, but on Friday he for the first time rejected Russia’s core justifications for beginning its military intervention in Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year.

“…The Defence Ministry is trying to deceive society and the president and tell us a story about how there was crazy aggression from Ukraine and that they were planning to attack us with the whole of NATO” Prigozhin said in a video clip released on Telegram by his press service, calling the official version “a beautiful story.”

“The special operation was started for different reasons,” he said. “The war was needed… so that Shoigu could become a marshal … so that he could get a second 'Hero [of Russial medal. The war wasn’t needed to demilitarise or denazify Ukraine.”

He also said the conflict had been needed to acquire “material assets” to divide among the ruling elite.

Prigozhin portrays his Wagner private militia, which spearheaded the capture of the city of Bakhmut last month, as Russias most effective fighting force, and has enjoyed unusual freedom to publicly criticise Moscow, albeit not President Vladimir Putin, on whose support he ultimately depends.

    • ToastyWaffle
      76·
      1 year ago

      FSB has announced they’ve started a criminal investigation into him.

      I wonder if he’s in cahoots with the CIA or something?

      • Soviet Snake@lemmygrad.ml
        29·
        1 year ago

        Sounds a lot like La CIA to me, he either got payed some money or something, I don’t think the rest of Wagner’s army is going to follow him, though.

        • TomHardy
          11·
          1 year ago

          Nah it sounds more he’s preparing the Russian public’s consent to lower expectations from the war, and, that everything is Shoigu’s fault and somebody more competent needs to be put in place… perhaps him? And he said Putin tells wrong stuff about the war because Shoigu is making false reports about the front (so he does not oppose the current government but a la liberal style says it’s one guys fault).

          He did not propose any structural changes, so I think the Russian elite asked Prigozhin to use populist tactics to justify some misdoings at the front, and to channel the blame onto one individual.