Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, has given an interview to Russian milblogger Vladlen Tatarsky in which he explains why he thinks Wagner is experiencing severe 'shell hunger' in eastern Ukraine. It includes a lot of interesting details. A rough translation: ⬇️

2/ PRIGOZHIN: Ammunition has not been given to us and is not being given to us. As of 10:20:02 February, no steps have been taken to issue ammunition. What is the problem? I'll explain.

3/ I am posting a picture below. This is one of the gathering places of the dead. These are the guys who died yesterday. Due to shelling and starvation so called. There should have been five times less. Five times. So. Mothers, wives and children will get their bodies.

4/ Who is to blame for their deaths? The fault lies with those who should have decided to supply us with enough ammunition. The final signature should go to either [Valery] Gerasimov or [Sergei] Shoigu. Neither of them wants to make a decision. Why not?

5/ Here's an explanation. PMC Wagner does not exist, as it were. Earlier we were formally issued with ammunition for some military units, which, sort of, take Bakhmut instead of us. But there is no one there and it became widely known.

6/ And there was a scandal during the capture of Soledar where it was said that, unfortunately, representatives of the Ministry of Defence were not there. There was an attempted story of paratroopers running around.

7/ And after that, the paratroopers themselves honestly said, "why you are deceiving us, why are you deceiving the people? We were not there at the taking of Soledar. This was done by PMC Wagner."

8/ And then Chaplinsky [commander of Russian army forces at Soledar?], as an honest man, wrote a report in order not to suffer the shame into which they are trying to drag him. So, PMC Wagner does not seem to exist, and therefore they don’t give us ammunition at all.

9/ Ammunition is issued to some mythical grouping instead.

The second photo that I will post is an application addressed to the General Staff by Troshev, the official representative of PMC Wagner in the [Russian] General Staff.

10/ In which there is a budget for ammunition per day, a budget for 10 days ... I deleted the names of the ammunition types, which is a secret. The ammunition that is needed, especially for warfare, is indicated in red.

11/ Next comes the last line printed on the printer, on the right – what we need for 10 days. And then it is written by hand how much we were given for 10 days, taking into account, theoretically, units that could be with us, but are on our flanks.

12/ We have to go to them and ask for [ammunition], the commanders of these units will give us 70%, maybe 80% of the amount received, of course, because they are honest officers, honest lieutenant colonels, honest colonels. They are honourable men as well.

13/ They understand that we are engaged in the main combat work and therefore they will give us the portion of the ammunition that we are entitled to. And maybe not 70–80%, maybe all 100%. But let's go over it.

14/ For number one, we need 105,000, they give 3,600. Number three indicates 7,600 is needed. They give 600. What are we supposed to do with this ammunition? Should we just keep them in boxes and pray for them, or should we use them to defeat the enemy?

15/ TATARSKY: Have you raised this issue with anyone other than the Chief of General Staff?

16/ PRIGOZHIN: Yes, of course I have. In general, I should not write to the Chief of the General Staff. I have to write one step lower, but letters to the Chief of the General Staff are constantly being written one step lower. He should only be contacted when it's an emergency.

17/ Here is this letter to the Chief of the General Staff, it lay on his desk for several days, until he gathered his strength to consider it. I'm appealing to all necessary levels.

18/ The only thing is that I do not really believe in God's help and I have not applied to the church. Maybe I should ask some priest to burn some candles. Maybe he will get it.

19/ But I think that the information that you are asking for, it has to come from the people of the Russian Federation, who are suffering the most because of this feeling and meanness that is going on today in the leadership of the Ministry of Defence.

20/ TATARSKY: The Wagner PMC will continue to work in the Artemivsk [Bakhmut] direction. Won't it turn out that they will have to leave Artemivsk because of this situation?

21/ PRIGOZHIN: Wagner. They walk around like a beggar asking unit commanders to help in some way. At some depots, at some arsenals. Officers, colonels, heads of these arsenals, commanders. They understand they can be put in jail and given 10 years [for helping].

22/ Well, they give out ammunition without any documents. Some officers engage in irregularities, despite the fact that they understand very well that they could be put in jail for it, not today, but tomorrow. By the way, they are also on our side.

23/ They also understand that, violating all the regulations, they will be silent only because we have to take Bakhmut to move forward. It's not about Bakhmut. The point is that today we are pulling the entire war on ourselves and we will do it.

24/ And to your question, will you leave Bakhmut? No, we will not leave Bakhmut, we will simply die twice as much until everything is over. And when all the Wagner sheep run out, then most likely Shoigu and Gerasimov will have to take up arms.

25/ If only the relevant persons had prepared the army and did everything they were supposed to do for the last 10 years or more, PMC Wagner would not be necessary at all. There would be no need for a private organisation – roughly speaking, private.

26/ They don't belong to me, they belong to themselves. The Russians would not need them at all. But so far history has decreed that they go forward. And the rest of the masses, they simply do not understand who to obey.

27/ Because there are commanders on the ground, but they are sitting down upstairs, most likely. Let's turn on the factor of opinions so that there is no hysteria that the Prosecutor General must react urgently.

28/ Our citizens are simply completely pissed off at those who are sitting down, who think that the country was created in order for them to enjoy and receive honors.

29/ TATARSKY: How exactly can we help in this situation? By 'we', I mean the journalistic community.

30/ PRIGOZHIN: How can you help? How can you help? I think that if everyone – each Russian, I'm not calling anyone to rally – was just to say in their own place: "Give. Wagner. Shells." A campaign has now been launched, as a matter of fact, on social media.

31/ It will matter if a big official's driver will come up to him and say, "Give Wagner shells", if the stewardess at the entrance to the plane will say, "Give Wagner shells", if everyone writes on their social media, "Give Wagner shells."

32/ Are you on your website? Will you put that in the headline? A TV presenter will suddenly say during a live broadcast, "Sergei Kozhugetovich [Shoigu], give Wagner shells."

33/ I think we will break them, we will force them to stop this lawlessness. And we will be able to explain to the mothers of those who died that everything is stopped, they will not die in vain any more, because we made them give us shells.

34/ Once again I want to stress that we have the shells, the industry has reached the necessary speed of production. About four months ago I met with these people, I will not say their names, and I told them, "today the fate of the country depends on two people.

35/ We have been weaned off of them. Because we will go, we will clean up and we will go to the end and away from you, because you must start the mechanism of production."

36/ These people will be known one day. They started this production. They are heroes of Russia, they are more heroes than any soldier who died on the battlefield, because it was impossible to break the system, they broke it in many ways, they broke it in 20 percent.

37/ You have to break this system further, make it work. But they managed to do it. And the bureaucrats are just scoundrels and scum. /end

Source:
t.me/vladlentatarsk…
t.me/vladlentatarsk…