Russia’s Defence Ministry has promised to supply Wagner fighters with ammunition, founder of PMC Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin says, as per Telegram channel Prigozhin’s press service.
“Tonight, we received the first combat order during all of this time, according to which they are promising to give us ammunition and weapons — as much as we need to continue hostilities. <…>
“And we’ve been assigned [commander of the joint Russian forces in Ukraine, Sergey] Surovikin as a person that will make all decisions within the framework of cooperation between PMC Wagner and the Defence Ministry,” Prigozhin said.
Yesterday, 6 May, Prigozhin contacted representatives of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to hand over positions in Bakhmut starting from 10 May, in case the Defence Ministry would not supply Wagner with ammunition.
Kadyrov said on Saturday that units of the Akhmat special forces were ready to move into Bakhmut. “The fighters are ready for action, we are only waiting for an order,” he announced on his Telegram channel, saying that he had already signed a letter to Vladimir Putin on the subject. According to Kadyrov, Chechen forces “have started to develop their action strategy in this area together with the Russian Defence Ministry”.
On 4 and 5 May, Prigozhin published several videos announcing that he would withdraw Wagner troops from Bakhmut on 10 May unless the Ministry of Defence supplied them with ammunition. According to Prigozhin, as of 1 May the PMC had been receiving only 10% of the ammunition needed.
