Evgeny Prigozhin says he’s in touch with Ramzan Kadyrov about transferring Wagner positions in Bakhmut

Evgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group paramilitary cartel, says he’s been in touch with head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov’s team about transferring positions in Bakhmut.

“I’ve already connected with his representatives about beginning the transfer immediately, so that 00:00 on May 10, exactly the moment when we’ll completely exhaust our combat potential, our comrades-in-arms will take our place and continue the assault on the settlement of Bakhmut,” said Prigozhin.

The business tycoon’s press service published photographs of the statement Prigozhin sent to Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, requesting that Shoigu order the transfer of Wagner positions to the Akhmat battalion.

On May 5, Kadyrov published a long post on his personal Telegram account, calling the conflict between Prigozhin and Russia’s Defense Ministry “unpleasant.” He also said that Akhmat battalion fighters would take up Wagner mercenaries’ positions.

“If our big brother Prigozhin and Wagner are leaving, that means younger brother Kadyrov and Akhmat will take his place” in Bakhmut, wrote the Chechnya head. Kadyrov later announced that Akhmat units were ready to go to Bakhmut and that he’d signed a letter to the Russian authorities to that effect.

Evgeny Prigozhin has repeatedly criticized Russia’s Defense Ministry, since February 2023, for failing to provide Wagner Group with sufficient ammunition. On May 5, Prigozhin published an obscenity-laced video in which he stands in front of the bodies of dead Wagner fighters and blames Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov personally for the deaths.