Ukrainian Armed Forces don't believe Prigozhin: Putin won't let Wagnerites leave Bakhmut

The Armed Forces of Ukraine are sceptical about the claim made by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, that his fighters will supposedly start leaving Bakhmut on 10 May.

Source: Serhii Cherevatyi, the spokesperson for the Eastern group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in a comment to Ukrainska Pravda

Details: Cherevatyi said that the Wagnerites will simply not be allowed to retreat from the city, because Prigozhin does not make the decisions here: all the Wagner Group’s actions are personally ordered by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Secondly, as Cherevatyi emphasised, Prigozhin is also lying about the lack of munitions that is allegedly the reason why his mercenaries are being killed. In fact, the enormous losses suffered by the Wagnerites are due to the successful efforts of the Ukrainian Defence Forces.

The Wagnerites have plenty of munitions, Cherevatyi stressed; in the last 24 hours alone, they fired on Ukrainian troops' positions 520 times.

What Prigozhin and his private military company really lack is people. Cherevatyi said that convicts are no longer going to the front.

Background: On 5 May, Yevgeny Prigozhin wrote to the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defence to say that he would be withdrawing the Wagner Group’s mercenaries from Bakhmut on 10 May.

He claims that the reason for this is that the Russian Ministry of Defence is not providing his fighters with enough ammunition, and he does not want his people to be "doomed to senseless death" because of this.

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