Wagner PMC boss threatens to withdraw from Bakhmut blaming huge troop losses on the lack of supplies

Citing a lack of supplies from Moscow, Wagner PMC boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has threatened to pull what is left of his army out of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

The region has been at the centre of fierce fighting for many months with the mercenary chief suffering a high number of casualties.

“Every day we have piles of thousands of bodies that we put in coffins to send them home”, he said in an interview with Russian blogger Semyon Pegov – specialising in military issues – published on Friday, April 28, as reported by larazon.es.

Wagner forces have been instrumental in the few battles that the Russian side has won since Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Bakhmut however has become a nightmare for Prigozhin, who claimed to have lost five times more men than was necessary during the ongoing battles to take the city.

He blamed this on the organisation’s lack of artillery ammunition. Prigozhin confirmed to Pegov that he had asked Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu by letter for new supplies because: “if we cannot solve this ammunition deficit, we will have to withdraw or die so as not to end up running like rats in the end”.

As a result of the situation, the Wagner chief openly admitted that he is contemplating the possibility of withdrawing part of his troops. If he was to do so, in his opinion, that would lead to the collapse of the Bakhmut front with the consequent impact on the entire line of combat in the region.

According to military experts, the Ukrainian defenders have lost most of the city and are currently entrenched in a small portion in the west of Bakhmut. Russian sources claimed recently to be in control of at least 75 per cent of the city.