The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group threatened on Friday to pull his fighters out of Bakhmut next week over what he said was a lack of ammunition, delivering the ultimatum after releasing a scorching video in which he castigated top military leaders.

In the video posted on social media, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the Wagner chief, is seen walking among rows of bodies that he claimed were Wagner fighters killed in the battle for Bakhmut, the embattled city in eastern Ukraine. He called out Russia’s defence minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, and General Valery V. Gerasimov, the chief of the military general staff, as responsible for their deaths.

“These are Wagner guys who died today; the blood is still fresh,” Prigozhin said, in a speech marked by frequent bleeped-out expletives. “They came here as volunteers and they die so you can get fat in your offices with mahogany.”

Prigozhin has complained about ammunition shortages and threatened to pull out of the city before, but he has not previously named a date. The Wagner group has been a driving force behind Russia’s months-long battle to take Bakhmut, which has cost thousands of lives on both sides and reduced much of the city to rubble.

Prigozhin named next Wednesday, the day after Russia’s Victory Day holiday, as the day his forces would likely leave Bakhmut to withdraw and “lick their wounds”. The May 9 holiday, marked by a colossal parade and a show of military might on Red Square, celebrates the Soviet Union’s vanquishing of Nazi Germany and has taken on particular resonance in Russia amid its war in Ukraine.

“I am pulling out Wagner formations from Bakhmut because without weapons they are doomed to die meaninglessly,” he said in the video, adding that they would hand off to Russian defence forces.

Delegates scuffle

Two separate altercations over Ukrainian flags occurred at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation in Ankara on Thursday.

In one video, a woman is capturing herself on a cellphone when a Ukrainian lawmaker holds up a Ukrainian flag behind her. A second man, identified by Tass as the secretary of the Russian delegation, then walks up and rips the flag out of the Ukrainian man’s hands. As he walks away with the flag, the Ukrainian lawmaker follows him, then tears it out of his hands.

New York Times News Service