Moscow: Yevgeny Prigozhin, a flamboyant Russian mercenary commander, verbally attacked two senior officers on Tuesday, accusing them of depriving his Wagner fighters of ammunition in what he called a treacherous attempt to topple his private military firm.

His initial allegations of ammunition blocking were rejected by the Russian defence ministry as being "completely untrue." Then, in a voice message, Prigozhin reiterated that his men were severely lacking in supplies and said that this was "tantamount to nothing more than simply spitting at Wagner."

Since the start of the war, Prigozhin's role has become more visible. His Wagner Group led the fight for the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, but it is obvious that his relations with Moscow are deteriorating.

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Prigozhin's ability to recruit prisoners was taken away this year, and there have been some indications that the Kremlin is taking action to limit his influence.
On Tuesday, he snapped and occasionally shouted.

In his first voice message on his Telegram channel, he claimed that "there is just direct opposition going on" to efforts to arm Wagner fighters. This is comparable to high treason.

According to Prigozhin, "the chief of the general staff and the defence minister are issuing orders left and right not only to withhold ammunition from Wagner PMC (private military company), but also to assist it with air transport."

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In response, the Russian defence ministry released a statement claiming that military leaders were making every effort to provide fighters.

As a result, all claims made on behalf of assault units regarding a shortage of ammunition are false, it said without mentioning Wagner by name.
"Attempts to break up the close network of cooperation and support between Russian (fighting) groups' units are counterproductive and serve only the interests of the enemy," the Russian military said.

Senior officials, according to Prigozhin, rejected requests for special spades to dig trenches. In the absence of necessary supplies, he claimed that top brass had decided that "people should die when it's convenient for them," and Wagner fighters were "dropping like flies."

He had complained that unnamed officials were withholding supplies from Wagner out of personal animosity towards him in an obscenity-laced message on Monday.

Wagner is not under the control of the defence ministry, despite the fact that the militia depends on the government for some logistics and weapons.
Tatiana Stanovaya, the director of the political consulting firm R.Politik, claimed that Prigozhin's outburst on Monday appeared to be "an act of desperation" intended to "get through to Putin."

Putin stated on Tuesday that he wanted to put an end to the infighting, though it was unclear if he had Prigozhin in mind.

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He told the political and military elite, "We must get rid of any interdepartmental contradictions, formalities, grudges, misunderstandings, and other nonsense. Prigozhin claimed in a different post that he was unable to respond to the president's remarks because he was occupied and unable to watch the speech.