“It would have been five times fewer if we had more ammunition,” said Prigozhin, who has previously accused Russia’s regular armed forces of not giving his men the ammunition they need. In an audio statement published on the Telegram messaging app account of his press service on Saturday evening, the Wagner boss said he had lost 94 fighters due to a lack of ammunition. The withdrawal of some fighters from Bakhmut would be likely, but he warned that this would mean the Russian front line would collapse elsewhere.

“If the ammunition deficit is not replenished, we are forced – in order not to run like cowardly rats afterwards – to either withdraw or die,” he said.

Prigozhin said he has written to Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu asking for ammunition as soon as possible. “Every day we have stacks of thousands of bodies that we put in coffins and send home,” Prigozhin said.

Losses in Bakhmut are five times higher than necessary because of a lack of artillery ammunition, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said in an interview with Russian military blogger Semyon Pegov published on Saturday. The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force threatens to withdraw his troops from the key battle for Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine as casualty rates mount while Ukraine’s military authorities say Russian forces have been unable to cut their supply routes to the front-line city.

Mercenary librarians