The head of Russia’s private Wagner army, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has accused officials close to Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin in the presidential administration of treason. They are pretending to be in Putin’s way when in reality they are disrupting the course of the war and hoping for a quick end to serve the US if Russia is defeated, Prigozhin said, according to a statement released today.
Businessman’s troops fight alongside the Russian army in Ukraine. At the same time, he said Moscow would soon comply with its demands to block the YouTube video platform.
“YouTube is the information plague of our time”
“YouTube is an information plague of our time,” said Prigozhin. So far, the service in Russia – unlike Twitter, Instagram and Facebook – has not been blocked, “because a huge number of people working in the presidential administration think only of one thing – that Russia can lose the war as soon as possible “. These people are the “traitors of their people and their country” and “Wagner’s sledgehammer” awaits them in the future, Prigozhin said.
The statement is an allusion to a video published by Wagner, which allegedly shows the murder of a renegade mercenary from his own ranks. Wagner’s fighter first voluntarily went into Ukrainian captivity, but later returned to Russia as part of a prisoner exchange and, according to the video, was killed with a sledgehammer.
The clip sparked international outrage. Prigozhin is wanted in the US with a reward for his capture because he is alleged to have interfered in the US presidential election.
YouTube one of the last uncensored sources
Prigozhin demanded that anyone who continued to use the service after YouTube was blocked be punished. Blocking YouTube in Russia in the same way as other social networks blocked on the Internet was already discussed at the beginning of the war. However, the plans came to nothing.
For many Russians, who bemoan the manipulation of one-sided propaganda on state television, YouTube is one of the last sources of unimpeded access to a wide variety of information. Prigozhin claimed that only “fake news” was being spread there.