Wagner mercenaries ‘seize Russian commander’ as troops ‘on brink of civil battle’

A Russian commander has been captured by the Wagner group because the mercenary’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, ramps up his feud with the common military. To elevate tensions additional a video of the officer, Lieutenant Colonel Roman Venetivin, has been posted on Prigozhin’s social media channels.

In the clip Venevitin, the commander of Russia’s 72nd Brigade, tells an interrogator that when he was drunk he had ordered his troops to fireside on a Wagner convoy.

Seemingly by no means understanding fairly the place to look and alternating between trying on the digital camera and the bottom, Venevitin stated he gave the order due to his “personal dislike” for Wagner after which apologised.

The seize of the commander comes every week after Prigozhin accused the Russian military of trying to explode his males as they had been pulling again from Bakhmut in jap Ukraine.

And he additionally said that his males had found explosives. He stated they had been planted on objective by defence ministry officers.

The newest incident comes amid a rise in preventing alongside the frontlines within the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia areas.

And some nationalist pro-war commentators stated Wagner’s arrest of Venevitin exhibits that Prigozhin’s affect throughout the Kremlin is rising.

Writing on his Telegram channel, Igor Strelkov, a retired Russian particular operations officer, and navy blogger, stated: “Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose subordinates posted a video in which they mock a senior officer and an entire brigade commander … is allowed to do whatever he wants. He is considered as the highest caste!”

Prigozhin’s affect has grown because of his troops steadily capturing Bakhmut in current months.

This delivered some good news for Moscow because it was the primary tangible navy victory since final summer time.

Prigozhin has been a essential energy participant for the reason that begin of the battle and has used his social media accounts to blast the defence ministry.

But his affect has not been embraced by everybody, with some parts of the Russian elite offended at what he’s allowed to get away with.

Last week, two close allies of the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, described him as a “hysterical blogger” and stated he undermined Russia’s battle effort.