The head of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, on Wednesday acknowledged the failure of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, saying none of the goals had been achieved.
“The special operation was launched with the aim of ‘denazification’, but we turned Ukraine into a nation known throughout the world,” Prigozhin was quoted as saying on the Telegram social network by the words of the Spanish agency EFE.
The businessman who led the Wagner group’s mercenaries on the front lines said the Russian invasion made Ukrainians “Greeks and Romans of a prosperous era.”
Prigozhin is an ally of President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, among other things, with the aim of “demilitarizing and denazifying” the neighboring country.
Since the beginning of the war, Prigozhin has been sharply critical of the Russian General Staff and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
The head of the Wagner group believed that Russia had also failed in the task of demilitarizing Ukraine.
“If before the start of the special operation they [os ucranianos] they had, say, 500 tanks, now 5,000. If at that time they were able to fight 20,000 soldiers, now they have 400,000,” he said.
“It turns out that we are militarizing Ukraine, and how!” he criticized, alluding to Kyiv’s Western allies supplying weapons as a result of the invasion.
Prigozhin also stated that the Wagner group “is the best army in the world.”
“To be correct, I have to say that the second best army in the world is the Russian army. But I think the Ukrainians have one of the strongest armies,” he said.
Prigozhin said that the Ukrainian military can successfully use any weapon system, be it Soviet or NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
He also compared the motivations of Ukrainian soldiers to those of the Soviets during the war against Nazi Germany.
“They are doing everything to achieve the ultimate goal, just like we did during the Great Patriotic War,” he said.
The Great Patriotic War is the designation given in Russia to the period of World War II between the start of the invasion of the then Soviet Union in 1941 and the surrender of Germany in 1945.
Prigogine also criticized the children of the Russian elite for the luxurious life they display on social media, where “ordinary people see their children being returned to them in zinc coffins smashed to pieces.”
“And one should not think that there are hundreds of them, now there are tens of thousands of relatives of the dead. And there will definitely be hundreds of thousands,” he added.
Prigogine warned that this duality of criteria “may end, as in 1917, in revolution,” referring to the conflict that led to the fall of the monarchy and the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, seizing power.
In addition to arms deliveries, Kyiv’s Western allies have put in place packages of sanctions against Russia to try to reduce Moscow’s ability to fund the war effort.
The death toll from the conflict that plunged Europe into what is considered the worst security crisis since World War II (1939-1945) is unknown.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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