Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Russia's Wagner Group mercenary force, said in a sudden and dramatic announcement on Friday that his forces would leave the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut that they have been trying to capture since last summer.
Prigozhin said they would leave on May 10 because of heavy losses and inadequate ammunition supplies.
"I declare on behalf of the Wagner fighters, on behalf of the Wagner command, that on May 10, 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," Prigozhin said in a statement.
"I'm pulling Wagner units out of Bakhmut because in the absence of ammunition they're doomed to perish senselessly."
Wagner has been spearheading Russia's attempt to capture Bakhmut since last summer, in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war in Ukraine.
It was not clear if Prigozhin's statement could be taken at face value, as he has frequently posted impulsive comments in the past. Only last week he withdrew one statement he said he had made as a "joke".
His latest one followed an expletive-filled video published early on Friday in which Prigozhin, surrounded by dozens of corpses he said were Wagner fighters, yelled and swore at Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov. He said they were to blame for Wagner's losses because they had starved it of ammunition.
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