Wagner chief says Moscow promisses more weapons
The owner of the Wagner mercenary group said on Sunday that Moscow "promised" more ammunition and weapons to continue the fight for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, Euronews reports.
It was a risk the Russian Military command did not want to take.
In an audio message released on Sunday, the owner and financier of the notorious mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, withdrew his threat to pull his troops out of the Bakhmut area, after securing a pledge from the government.
"Last night we received an order to fight (...). They promise to give us all the ammunition and weapons we need to continue operations," Prigozhin said.
"We are assured that everything necessary will be provided to our flanks (around Bakhmut) so that the enemy does not break through and we are told that we can act in Artiomovsk (the Soviet name for Bakhmut) as we see fit," he added.
In a video message released on Friday, Prigozhin blasted the Russian army leadership and vowed to pull his troops out of Bakhmut, the epicentre of the fighting in Ukraine, if they did not receive more material support.
He also accused the high command of being responsible for "tens of thousands" of Russians being killed and wounded in Ukraine, as the threat of a Ukrainian counteroffensive backed by Western-supplied weapons looms.
The oligarch then asked the Russian Defence Minister on Saturday to hand Bakhmut operations over to Chechen troops headed by Ramzan Kadyrov.
"I ask you to issue a battle order on the transfer, before midnight on 10 May, of the positions of the Wagner group to the units of the Akhmat battalion in the locality of Bakhmut and its surroundings," Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a letter published by his press office addressed to the Russian Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu.
The head of Wagner said he was making this request "because of a long shortage of ammunition", accusing the general staff of having supplied him with only 32% of the requested ammunition since October.
