Press service of Concord/Handout via Reuters
Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin has vowed to defy an order from Russia’s Defense Ministry to fall under the regular army’s command—and he now says he’ll take other defectors under his wing to build the mercenary group’s ranks.
His comments, perhaps the biggest indication yet of a potential military coup, come after Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu signed a decree mandating all volunteer fighters to sign a contract with the ministry by July 1. The move is widely seen as a bid to centralize military control and limit Prigozhin’s influence in the war after he spent months airing the dirty laundry of Russian infighting and, most recently, was accused of having his fighters routinely abduct and torture regular Russian troops.
But according to Prigozhin, it all boils down to jealousy. Shoigu, he said, “can’t stand anybody who does something better than he does. And that’s why everyone is supposed to lick his boots. Wagner has never done that.”