Maybe it’s just a provocation but there’s no doubt that in a climate of conflict it makes noise. The head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has announced that he will run in next year’s presidential elections. But not in Russia, as some might assume, but “in the Ukraine.” “The important announcement” came in a video message recorded while shots can be heard in the background, presumably from Bakhmut’s front. Prigozhin, 61, says he will run against current president Volodymyr Zelensky and his predecessor Petro Poroshenko.
Read also: Ukrainian war, Wagner’s boss: we are one kilometer from the center of Bakhmut
And the issue of ammunition that the Kremlin would not send to the battlefield is still open. And the complaint comes once again from Wagner’s boss. Prigozhin asked for 10 thousand tons of ammunition to be able to continue fighting in Bakhmut. The request comes in a video, where Prigozhin is shown standing on the roof of a destroyed house which is said to be 1.2 km from the center of Bakhmut. “We will win,” declares the mercenary leader, adding that no one in Moscow need fear that he has political ambitions. What he’s asking for is the shipment of ammunition. It needs half a million dollars a month, he says, and the Russian oligarchs could pay for it.