Russia's main mercenary group has announced plans to pull out of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut but Ukraine says the group's fighters are reinforcing positions to try to seize it before Russia marks victory in World War II day next week.
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Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said his men had been starved of ammunition and would expect the army to take their place in Bakhmut next Wednesday, jeopardising what has long been Russia's main target in its attempt to carve up its neighbour.
"My lads will not suffer useless and unjustified losses in Bakhmut without ammunition," Prigozhin said in a video accompanying a written withdrawal announcement addressed to the head of general staff, the defence ministry and President Vladimir Putin as supreme commander.
The announcement said "bureaucrats" had held back supplies despite knowing that Wagner's target date to capture the city was May 9, when Russia holds its World War II Victory Day.
"If, because of your petty jealousy, you do not want to give the Russian people the victory of taking Bakhmut, that's your problem," Prigozhin added in the video.
State-owned RIA news agency later reported that Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had instructed one of his deputy ministers to ensure troops had all the weapons they needed.
The battle for Bakhmut, which Russia sees as a stepping stone to other cities in Ukraine's Donbas region still beyond its control, has been the most intense of the conflict, costing thousands of lives on both sides in months of grinding warfare.
Ukrainian troops have been pushed back in recent weeks but have clung on in the city to inflict as many Russian losses ahead of Ukraine's planned big push against the invading forces along the 1000km front line.
"Because of the lack of ammunition, our losses are increasing exponentially every day," Prigozhin's official withdrawal statement said.
"On May 10, 2023, we are obliged to transfer positions in the settlement of Bakhmut to units of the defence ministry and withdraw the remains of Wagner to logistics camps to lick our wounds."
It was not clear if Prigozhin, who often makes impulsive comments, would go ahead with the withdrawal if his men received extra ammunition or if the row might even be a smokescreen.
A senior Ukrainian official said Russia was bringing Wagner mercenary fighters from along the front line to Bakhmut to capture it by Victory Day.
"We are now seeing them pulling (fighters) from the entire offensive line where the Wagner fighters were, they are pulling (them) to the Bakhmut direction," Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on Ukrainian television.
The Kremlin declined to comment on Prigozhin's statement, citing the fact it was related to what it calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine, where it has declared southern and eastern regions it has partly seized as annexed to Russia.
In another sign of disarray on the Russian side, former Russian deputy defence minister Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev joined Wagner as a deputy commander, Russian pro-war social media channels reported.
Earlier, Prigozhin was pictured surrounded by corpses he said were his men, shouting abuse at Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov.
"Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where is the ******* ammunition?" he shouted, using a torrent of expletives that were bleeped out.
In remarks released later by his press service, Prigozhin said Shoigu and Gerasimov must bear the responsibility for "tens of thousands of Wagner dead and injured".
The Russian-installed governor of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, Yevgeny Balitsky, said he had ordered the evacuation of villages close to the front line with Ukrainian forces there, saying that Ukrainian shelling had intensified in recent days.
The Ukrainian counterattack is viewed as likely to take in the Zaporizhzhia region, about 80 per cent of which is held by Russian forces.
Russia has suffered few direct attacks during the war but Russian news agencies reported a second drone attack in as many days on the Ilsky oil refinery in the south on Friday, causing a fire but no casualties.
It was not immediately clear who launched it.
Australian Associated Press
