Yevgeny Prigozhin has repeatedly accused the Russian defence ministry of intentionally ravenous his fighters of munitions in what he referred to as a treasonous try to destroy the mercenary group.

The more and more vitriolic proprietor of the Russian mercenary agency the Wagner Group hit out at Russia’s navy elite by publishing a grim picture of dozens of his fighters he mentioned had been killed after being disadvantaged of ammunition whereas battling Ukrainian troops.

Yevgeny Prigozhin – founding father of the Wagner personal navy firm that’s preventing on Moscow’s behalf in Ukraine – took a bitter public feud with the highest military brass to a brand new degree on Wednesday with the grisly {photograph} of corpses piled excessive, whereas laying blame for his or her deaths squarely with the highest military brass.

“This is among the locations the place the our bodies of those that have died are gathered,” Prigozhin informed a outstanding Russian navy blogger in an interview.

“These are guys who died yesterday due to so-called [artillery] ‘shell starvation’. Moms, wives and kids will get their our bodies. There ought to be 5 instances much less [dead]. Who’s responsible that they died? The responsible ones are those that ought to have resolved the query of us getting sufficient ammo.”

Wagner’s chief repeatedly accused the Russian defence ministry this week of intentionally ravenous his fighters of munitions in what he referred to as a treasonous try to destroy the mercenary group.

The defence ministry, in an announcement late on Tuesday, mentioned such allegations had been “utterly unfaithful” and complained – with out mentioning Prigozhin by title – about makes an attempt to create splits that labored “solely to the good thing about the enemy”.

Undeterred, Prigozhin doubled down on his allegations, taking the weird step of releasing the picture of dozens of his lifeless fighters laying prostrate on the icy floor in jap Ukraine, the place Wagner is battling to attempt to take the small Ukrainian metropolis of Bakhmut.

‘Nonetheless not giving us ammo’

In one other transfer prone to infuriate Russian navy leaders, Prigozhin launched a duplicate of what he mentioned was Wagner’s official request to the defence ministry for ammunition, with detailed tallies of shells used, requested and acquired – although he mentioned he blanked out delicate knowledge such because the names of the shells.

“They’re nonetheless not giving us ammo. No steps to offer us ammo have been taken,” mentioned Prigozhin, alleging Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, a detailed ally of President Vladimir Putin, and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Basic Employees, had been withholding their signatures from shell approval varieties.

Neither man has publicly responded to Prigozhin’s criticism previously.

Prigozhin, a rich catering tycoon, has assumed a extra public function for the reason that warfare began. However he has confronted pushback from the authorities in current weeks amid indicators of a transfer by the Kremlin and defence ministry to rein in his rising affect.

On Wednesday, he mentioned he launched a social media marketing campaign to attempt to safe artillery shells, including that Wagner had been lowered to begging navy warehouses for ammunition, which he mentioned was generally profitable.

Regardless of the purported scarcity, he mentioned his fighters would hold making an attempt to overrun Ukraine’s Bakhmut.

“Twice as many people are going to die that’s all, till there are none of us left,” he mentioned. “And when Wagner are all lifeless then Shoigu and Gerasimov will in all probability have to choose up a gun.”