Ukraine war: Wagner mercenary boss escalates row with Russia army brass with grisly photo

Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin took a bitter public feud with the top army brass to a new level, publishing a grisly image of dozens of his fighters he said had been killed after being deprived of ammunition.

Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private military company which is fighting on Moscow’s behalf in Ukraine, has this week repeatedly accused the Russian defence ministry of deliberately starving his fighters of munitions in what he has called a treasonous attempt to destroy Wagner.

The defence ministry, in a statement late on Tuesday, said such allegations were “completely untrue” and complained – without mentioning Prigozhin by name – about attempts to create splits that worked “solely to the benefit of the enemy”.

Undeterred, Prigozhin doubled down on his allegations on Wednesday, taking the unusual step of releasing a picture of dozens of his dead fighters laying prostrate on the icy ground in eastern Ukraine, where Wagner is battling to try to take the small Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

“This is one of the places where the bodies of those who have died are gathered,” Prigozhin told a prominent Russian military blogger in an interview.

“These are guys who died yesterday because of so-called shell hunger. Mothers, wives and children will get their bodies. There should be five times less (dead). Who is guilty that they died? The guilty ones are those who should have resolved the question of us getting enough ammo.”