Prigozhin warns 'entire front will fall to Russia borders, and maybe further'
Prigozhin suddenly made predictions about the war that were disappointing for the Russians (Photo:Screenshot from the video / Telegram)
The owner of the Russian private military company (PMC) Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said in a new video on March 5 that if his troops retreat from Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast, “the entire front will fall to the Russian borders, and maybe further.”
He claimed PMC Wagner “is taking on the entire Ukrainian army and destroying it,” which “doesn't give it the opportunity to concentrate on other areas of the front.”
“If PMC Wagner retreats now, then (…) the front (clearly) will collapse,” Prigozhin said in the video.
“The front will fall back to the Russian borders, maybe it will fall back even further.”
Should this happen, he said, the Kremlin authorities will blame the “Wagnerites” for the defeat, as their retreat from Bakhmut would cause a “springboard effect,” enabling Ukrainian forces to move forward.
“They will say: a group of mercenaries convinced Putin they were needed (but in fact we were called),” Prigozhin said.
“Later (they will say) a group of mercenaries did not agree with the country's leaders and abruptly retreated. And then the ‘springboard effect’ comes in: the tense Ukrainian army on the left and right flanks and from the center breaks into the territory of the ‘LPR,’” he said.
“(The Ukrainian army) will sweep into Luhansk, sweep into Krasnodon, and break into Russian territory. The Russian army will be forced to stabilize the front before the flanks finally crumble. Then Crimea will fall and there will be many other calamities.”
He added that it is PMC Wagner that is the “cement that prevents the enemy from breaking through.”
“If we leave, we will go down in history forever as people who took the main step to lose the war,” the Wagner leader said.
Prigozhin again complained that his mercenaries were not provided with sufficient ammunition and weapons. He demanded that Russia solve the problem of “shell hunger” and threatened the departure of PMC Wagner from Bakhmut should that not happen.
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