Kremlin-linked businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, a co-founder and owner of the Wagner mercenary group, says his units have started to receive ammunition after he accused the Defense Ministry of treason by holding back supplies for artillery and missile-launchers in Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Prigozhin’s press service issued a statement on February 23, in which Wagner's said he had been informed "at 6 a.m. today that the ammunition was being sent."
In an audio statement a day earlier, Prigozhin had called on Russians to pressure the army to give his fighters more ammunition, reiterating that the Defense Ministry had deliberately disrupted ammunition deliveries to his fighters.
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He also posted a picture depicting dead Russian mercenaries who allegedly died on 21 February because they had no ammunition to fight back.
"It looks like the process started. At least on paper, but we were told that the major documents had been signed," Prigozhin said of the resumption of ammunition supplies.
Prigozhin, considered one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest allies, had accused top armed forces officials of committing "treason" by failing to equip his private troops, who have been a major force in the battle to take the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, with enough ammunition.
In response, the Russian Defense Ministry on February 22 rejected Prigozhin's claims saying that all volunteer brigades in Ukraine's east are being supplied with all types of ammunition in a "timely" fashion.
Prigozhin subsequently called the Defense Ministry's statement a "spit in the eye of the Wagner private military group and an attempt to cover up its crimes against the fighters who today are carrying out acts of bravery."
Earlier in the week, in another audio statement, Prigozhin accused Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the Russian Army General Staff Valery Gerasimov of refusing to deliver ammunition to Wagner in "an attempt to destroy" it. Prigozhin added that he was required to "apologize and obey" in order to secure ammunition for his troops.
Wagner has recruited thousands of inmates from penitentiaries across Russia since last summer to fight in Ukraine.