Kremlin denies army has rift with ‘heroes from Wagner’

THE Kremlin has denied reports of a rift between the Russian army and the Wagner mercenaries, after the group’s founder boasted of the superior skills of his guns for hire.

Tensions between Wagner and the military intensified after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch who founded the group, said last week that his fighters had captured the town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, after some of the bloodiest fighting of the war.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, claimed the conflict between the regular army and the paramilitary group had been invented by journalists and military bloggers. “It is mainly the product of information manipulation,” Mr Peskov said yesterday. “They are all fighting for their motherland.”

Striking an uncharacteristically courteous tone, he said Russia “must know – and knows – its heroes”.

“It knows both the heroes who are serving in our armed forces ... and the heroes from [Wagner].”

The Kremlin’s acknowledgement of the Wagner group’s contribution to its military campaign in Ukraine came after Mr Prigozhin praised the skills of his force in a video laden with implicit criticism of the Russian military.

“They are probably the most experienced army in the world,” he said in the video, which was reportedly filmed close to the front lines near Soledar.

“They have aircraft – the pilots are heroes who are not afraid to die.

“There are artillery of all calibres, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and assault units that have no equal in the world,” he said.