The head of Russia’s notorious Wagner mercenary group Yevgeniy Prigozhin said on Thursday that he’d been cut off from all government communication channels following his recent public plea to the Ministry of Defense to supply his fighters in Ukraine with urgently needed ammunition.
“In order to stop me from asking for ammunition, they turned off all special [government] phone lines in all of the offices and [Wagner] units … and blocked all [my] passes to the agencies responsible for making decisions,” Prigozhin said in a message posted on his Telegram channel.
Prigozhin made headlines last month when he accused Russia’s top brass of committing “treason” by intentionally depriving his fighters in eastern Ukraine of ammunition supplies.
He subsequently called on ordinary Russians to help him put pressure on the country’s regular army to share their supplies of ammunition with Wagner mercenaries.
Though Prigozhin subsequently announced that ammunition shipments to Wagner had resumed, in his Thursday message he revealed that the ammunition shortage “situation” hadn’t, in fact, seen much improvement.
“Now I can only ask [for more supplies] through the media and … most likely will be doing just that,” Prigozhin said.
A close ally of President Vladimir Putin, Prigozhin has been engaged in a public stand-off with Russian military officials for months now, accusing them of taking credit for victories won by Wagner fighters and of slowing down the advance of Wagner units in Ukraine with red tape.