Wagner chief Prigozhin calls on Putin to end Ukraine war
'Many of those who supported the special operation yesterday are now in doubt, or categorically against what is happening'
Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of Russia’s notorious mercenary Wagner group, on Saturday urged President Vladimir Putin to stop the “special military operation,” as the Kremlin calls the war in Ukraine.
In his op-ed about the current situation on the frontline posted on Telegram, Prigozhin, who lost thousands of militants in the battle of Bakhmut, suggested that Moscow should declare victory in the Ukraine war.
“The ideal option is to announce the end of the SMO (special military operation), to inform everyone that Russia has achieved the results that it planned for, and in a sense we have actually achieved them. We have exterminated a huge number of fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and we can tell ourselves that the tasks of the SMO have been completed,” Prigozhin wrote.
According to him, “theoretically, Russia has already” achieved the victory “by destroying a large part of the active male population of Ukraine, by intimidating another part of it, which fled to Europe.”
“Russia cut off the Sea of Azov and a large piece of the Black Sea, seized a fat piece of Ukrainian territory and created a land corridor to the Crimea. Now there is only one thing left: to firmly gain a foothold, to claw into those territories,” said Prigozhin.
The mercenaries chief noted that the expected counteroffensive of the Ukrainian army could end with a breakthrough of the front line.
"In this case, in the (Russian) army, which for years considered itself one of the best armies in the world, decadent moods may begin at first, and then the situation will degrade," warned Prigozhin, adding that the successful development of the Russian attack "to the borders of the DPR (self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic), Dnipro or Poland" was unlikely.
Prigozhin also stressed that the Russian elites do not support the long war.
“Many of those who supported the special operation yesterday are now in doubt, or categorically against what is happening,” wrote Prigozhin, adding that they want to “urgently return to their normal life, old habits and comfort.”