Russia did not face an imminent security threat to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary outfit, said in a bombshell video posted on social media Friday. “The Armed Forces of Ukraine were not going to attack Russia with the NATO bloc,...
Russia did not face an imminent security threat to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary outfit, said in a bombshell video posted on social media Friday. “The Armed Forces of Ukraine were not going to attack Russia with the NATO bloc,” Prigozhin explained in the half-hour tirade released by his press service. “The Russian Defense Ministry is deceiving the public and the president,” he added.
Russia did not face an imminent security threat to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia's Wagner mercenary outfit, said in a bombshell video posted on social media Friday. Prigozhin's comments were at odds with the casus belli given by President Vladimir Putin when he ordered troops into Ukraine last February, although the private army chief avoided personally attacking the Russian leader. Putin has cited NATO expansion near Russia's borders as one of the main justifications for invading neighboring Ukraine. Prigozhin also accused Kremlin-linked oligarchs of seeking to plunder Ukraine's resources after its military capture and appointment of a puppet regime in Kyiv. Some analysts have interpreted Prigozhin's latest comments as a sign of his growing political ambitions.
This just goes to show that Wagner is a mercenary group. They'll fight for who pays them, but they don't have to be loyal. It makes me wonder if someone with a larger pocketbook could fund Wagner to not fight.
"Our killing and displacement of thousands of innocent sovereign people, the loss of misinformed Russian men, sabotaging the Russian economy, destroy all ties with the West, crazy-making propaganda, and intimidating the world with nuclear war was unjustified from the beginning. I acknowledge that we knew that from the start and lied to everyone about it to see if we could still get away with it, but now that it's not working, we need to come up with ways to back track it and save face. Since I was the first Russian leader to acknowledge it, I should be in charge."