The head of the Wagner Group, Yevgueni Prigozhin, today thanked the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, for his offer to occupy the positions of his fighters in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut starting Wednesday, and assured that he is already negotiating with representatives of the Chechen troops on transfer.
"I am already contacting your representatives so that at 00:00 local time on May 10, exactly at the moment when, according to our calculations, we will completely exhaust our combat potential, the comrades will take our place and continue the assault on Bakhmut." , Prigozhin indicated on his Telegram channel.
The head of the Wagner mercenary company stressed that there are "just over two square kilometers to be taken" in Bakhmut, which will be "undoubtedly taken by Akhmat's forces", in reference to Kadyrov's troops.
He also expressed his confidence that the Chechen troops can obtain the necessary resources from the Ministry of Defense to conquer the city unlike the Wagnerites, who suffer from a shortage of ammunition, according to Prigozhin's complaint.
The day before, the Chechen leader expressed his willingness in a message on Telegram addressed to the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, to the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, and to Prigozhin to replace the mercenaries of the Chechnya with their special units. Wagner group in Bakhmut.
The reason was the announcement on Friday by the head of the private military company that he will withdraw his units next Wednesday due to the lack of ammunition and the high number of casualties suffered by the Wagnerites on this front.
"If the older brother Prigozhin and Wagner leave, then the General Staff loses an experienced unit, but the younger brother Kadyrov and (the special unit) Akhmat will come in their place," he wrote.
Kadyrov stressed that the displacement "is a matter of a few hours" and that his soldiers "are already prepared to advance and take the city."
Of course, he qualified that he hopes to have the firmness of the high command and Russian soldiers when it comes to complying with the orders of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Vladimir Putin, after Prigozhin denounced the lack of support from Moscow.
He recalled that Chechen units had already fought the Wagnerites in places such as Popasna, Severodonetsk and Lisichansk, all localities in the Lugansk region.
"Together we fulfill the sacred duty before the homeland without divisions by ethnicity or faith. The interests of the State must be in the first place," he said.
He criticized the fact that the Ministry of Defense neither commented nor was willing to meet with Prigozhin, whom he praised for his "invaluable contribution" to the liberation of Donbas.
Bakhmut, the scene since August 2022 of the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, is currently the main objective of the Russian military campaign in Ukraine.
