LONDON, United Kingdom – Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin stated on Friday that the official Kremlin-backed model of why Moscow invaded Ukraine was based mostly on lies concocted by his perennial adversary – the military’s prime brass.
Prigozhin has for months been accusing Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s prime normal, Valery Gerasimov, of rank incompetence, however on Friday he for the primary time rejected Russia’s core justifications for invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 final 12 months in what it calls a “special military operation”.
“… the Defense Ministry is trying to deceive society and the president and tell us a story about how there was crazy aggression from Ukraine and that they were planning to attack us with the whole of NATO,” Prigozhin stated in a video clip launched on Telegram by his press service, calling the official model “a beautiful story”.
“The special operation was started for different reasons,” he stated. “The war was needed … so that Shoigu could become a marshal … so that he could get a second ‘Hero’ [of Russia] medal. The war wasn’t needed to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine.”
He additionally stated the warfare had been wanted to accumulate “material assets” to divide among the many ruling elite.
Prigozhin portrays his Wagner personal militia, which spearheaded the seize of town of Bakhmut final month, as Russia’s handiest combating power, and has loved uncommon freedom to publicly criticize Moscow, albeit not President Vladimir Putin, on whose assist he in the end relies upon.
Yet his newest assertion runs straight counter to the rationale for the warfare espoused by Putin, who stated when sending his armed forces into Ukraine that it was to demilitarize and denazify a rustic that posed a menace to Russia.
The Kremlin chief casts the battle as an existential wrestle in opposition to a Western alliance that desires to make use of Ukraine as a platform to destroy Russia.
There was no fast response from the Defense Ministry, which has ignored earlier complaints from Prigozhin, in public not less than. Nor was there any fast response from the Kremlin, which has declined previously to touch upon Prigozhin’s outbursts. — Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
