Has Wagner boss gone too far with thinly-veiled insult to Putin

Political infighting amongst the Russian hierarchy deepens ever further as Wagner boss, Prigozhin, appears to unleash his latest angry tirade against President Putin.

In yet another video post, Yevgeny Prigozhin has let rip with a scathing verbal attack, only this time it seems to be aimed at non-other than Vladimir Putin himself, according to The Daily Mail, Wednesday, May 10.

Last week Prigozhin threatened to pull his troops out of Bakhmut and directly blamed Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu and army chief Valery Gerasimov for not providing enough ammunition. He later backed down and didn’t go through with the order.

The stalemate at Bakhmut has led to insults and accusations among the various Russian factions, with each of them blaming the other for the months-long debacle.

In a video post yesterday the mercenary leader made his usual complaint of not enough ammunition but also took time to seemingly direct an insult straight at the Russian president.

He said, ‘they’re collecting [artillery shells] in warehouses, why, no one knows. ‘Instead of spending a shell to kill the enemy and save the lives of our soldiers, they let our soldiers die, and the “happy grandfather” thinks this is good for him.

‘If he turns out to be right, then God bless everybody… but how will we win the war, if, by chance, and I’m just speculating, it turns out that this grandfather is a complete a**hole?’

In conclusion, an angry Prigozhin added, ‘The shells give freedom. And if they don’t give freedom with the shells… if they keep holding onto them then first, we need to shove it up their a*** and then throw them in jail.’

Although Prigozhin did not explicitly refer to Putin by name, insiders acknowledge that his rant was almost certainly aimed at Putin.

It is well known that Vladimir Putin is often referred to as the ‘grandfather.’ In the past, prigozhin has relied on his close personal relationship with the Russian leader, but political and military experts fear that this time Prigozhin has massively overstepped the mark.

When asked about the incendiary comments today, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov remained tight-lipped and seemed to dismiss their significance and claimed that the Kremlin was ‘too busy’ to comment.