'Donbass Not Bombed For 8 Years': Prigozhin Lashes Out At Kremlin

The founder of the Wagner PMC has made some resonant statements.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenaries continues verbal confrontation with the leadership of the Russian Federation. This time he refuted propaganda myths that have been poured into the ears of the Russians for years.

In an interview published by Prigozhin's press office, he stated that the war in Ukraine did not start because of Russian fears at all amid a likely NATO attack.

"The Russian defence ministry is trying to deceive the public, to deceive the president, and to tell the story that there was huge aggression from Ukraine and they were going to attack us with the whole NATO bloc.

That is why the so-called 'special operation' was launched for absolutely different reasons," he said.

Prigozhin issued a number of other interesting statements that are unlikely to please his country's leadership. He made it clear that Ukraine has not bombed peaceful cities in Donbass for the last eight years, but only targeted Russian positions.

"Sometimes there were more of these strikes, sometimes less," he said.

Prigozhin noted that over the past 8 years, Donbass has been robbed, including by members of the Russian presidential administration. In addition to all this, he criticised the state of the Russian Federation's army at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine. According to him, it was in a "flawed state".

According to the Wagner PMC chief, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was ready for settlements when he took office.

"All that had to be done was to get off Olympus and go and negotiate with him," Prigozhin said.

He added that the war in Ukraine was needed by Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and the oligarchic clan running the Russian Federation.

"The war was needed to put Medvedchuk as president of Ukraine," he said.