Prizoghin invites Wagner PMC critic and former DPR Minister of Defence Igor Strelkov to join them

The former DPR Minister of Defence Igor Strelkov, a critic of Wagner PMC, was invited by mercenary boss Yvgeny Prighozin to become an officer in his army.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner PMC mercenary organisation commented today, Thursday, January 26, on public criticism from the former Minister of Defence of the DPR, Igor Strelkov.

He thanked him for praising the company’s fighters and said that he had talked with his army’s commanders and, despite their extremely negative attitude towards Igor Strelkov, ‘managed to convince them of his decision’, as reported by kommersant.ru.

As a ‘senior chief’ he invited the ex-minister of the DPR to a command position in the PMC, ‘to check the correctness of his position’.

In an interview with the National News Service earlier this month, Strelkov insisted that Yevgeny Prigozhin should not be allowed into the public space of Russia because of his ‘background as a criminal and a servant’.

At the same time, Strelkov spoke positively about the activities of the Wagner PMC fighters, calling them excellent assault infantry. However, he criticised the Wagner PMC command as: “an excellent assault infantry unit, which is simply put down in frontal attacks in the most talentless way. But the fighters of the formation, according to him, can and should find a more effective use”.

Responding via his Concorde press agency Telegram channel, the Wagner chief wrote: “I offer him to come to LNR territory to be appointed to a leadership position, according to his competence, in one of the assault units. Of course, no one will be able to offer him a high position, he needs to show his capabilities. It is time to move from words to deeds”.

He has repeatedly reported attempts to take part in hostilities in Ukraine. On October 14, 2022, he arrived in the DPR, where he wrote an application for voluntary mobilisation into the regional army. On the same day, he was enlisted in the motorised rifle brigade of the 1st People’s Militia Corps of the DPR.

However, on December 5, Igor Strelkov returned to Moscow. According to him, the higher command was dissatisfied with his inconsistent enrollment in the regiment.

Igor Girkin was the Minister of Defense of the DPR from May 16 to August 14, 2014. In the spring of 2014, he commanded units in eastern Ukraine.

On November 17, 2022, a court in The Hague sentenced Igor Strelkov in absentia to life imprisonment in the case of the Boeing 777 crash in Donbas in 2014. According to the court, Igor Girkin, as the Minister of Defence of the DPR, was responsible for the installation and delivery of the Buk, and also negotiated with responsible persons in Russia.

In response, Prighozin replied: “Of course, I have little faith in the fact that Girkin can be effective, and I believe that all his demagogy is purely PR and an attempt to make an easy buck”.

“But, in order either to cool his ardour or to make sure that the nonsense he’s talking makes sense in my view, let him come. If he manages to fight, good. If he runs away, we’ll consider him a deserter. If he dies, we’ll bury him properly”, he concluded.

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