On the evening of June 4, Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner PMC, published a video which allegedly showed a Russian Armed Forces lieutenant colonel with a broken nose, detained after admitting to having opened fire on a Wagner vehicle.
“I am lieutenant colonel Roman Gennadyevich Vinivitin, who fired at a Wagner PMC vehicle while intoxicated by alcohol [and] due to personal animosity,” the Russian colonel said in the released footage.
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The lieutenant colonel also admits that he and his subordinates, around 10-12 service members, disarmed the Wagner fighters.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has not commented on the posted video, and Russian mainstream media has so far ignored the news. Only the Russian ultra-patriot Igor Strelkov commented on the video:
"Actually, Lieutenant Colonel Vinivitin was lucky. He could have been hit on the head with a sledgehammer right after the apology. On camera...." Strelkov wrote on his Telegram channel, making reference to earlier videos which appeared to show Wagner soldiers executing a “traitor” by repeatedly hitting him with a sledgehammer.
Earlier, Prigozhin published video on May 17 of Wagner troops clearing mines which he claimed had been planted by the Russian armed forces on routes that Wagner units would take when moving to the rear of their positions.
He further claimed that the explosive devices were installed with command wires, to detonate them, that led to positions occupied by Russian regular forces.
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Prigozhin has clashed publicly with the Russian Defense Ministry on numerous occasions, often about failures to supply ammunition to his troops during battles to take the ruined city of Bakhmut.
In a series of profanity-laden videos and interviews in May, including one allegedly filmed in front of the dead bodies of Wagner fighters, he said: "We have a 70% ammunition shortage, f**k! Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where is the f**king ammunition? Look at them!
"You are sitting in expensive clubs. Your kids are having a blast making videos on YouTube. You think you are the masters of this life and have the right to dispose of their lives."
He has also accused a "happy grandfather" – a thinly-veiled reference to President Putin – of allowing it all to happen.
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