Ukraine revealed on Saturday (6) that it shot down a Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile for the first time, during a wave of attacks from Moscow during the early hours of Wednesday to Thursday. The missile was shot down in Kiev thanks to the Patriot anti-aircraft system provided by Washington. Also on Saturday, the leader of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner again said he wants to withdraw his men from the front in Bakhmut, and a writer close to Vladimir Putin was wounded in an explosion.
(RFI) Russia faces new setbacks this weekend. When Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced the Kinzhal missile to the world in 2018, he called it an “ideal weapon” because of its difficulty to be intercepted. The weaponry, however, did not stand up to the advanced anti-aircraft defense system designed in the United States.
“Yes, we shot down the ‘unmatched’ Kinzhal missile,” General Mikola Oleshchuk said on Telegram. “I congratulate the Ukrainian people on this historic event,” he added.
Ukraine received the first Patriot in mid-April. At the time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the equipment would “significantly” strengthen the country’s defenses against Russian attacks.
In another sign of weakness in the offensive launched by Moscow, the leader of the Wagner paramilitary group on Saturday asked the Russian Army for permission to hand over its positions in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut to the troops of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov in protest against a lack of ammunition. Yevgeny Prigozhin has given Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoogu until May 10 to make this change of command a reality. For months, the leader of the Wagner group has accused the Russian General Staff of not providing his men with enough ammunition to conquer Bakhmut. A victory by the paramilitaries would overshadow the Russian regular army in eastern Ukraine.
Prigozhin justified the request “due to a long-standing ammunition shortage,” accusing the Russian General Staff of providing him with only 32 percent of the requested ammunition since last October. On Friday (5), he had already threatened to withdraw his troops from Bakhmut, the epicenter of bloody fighting for several months.
On Telegram, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov reacted to Prigozhin’s proposal by saying that his fighters were ready to occupy Russian positions in the city if the Wagner group did indeed withdraw its units from the site. “Our fighters are ready to advance and occupy the city. It will take a few hours,” the Chechen said, indicating that his troops had already fought alongside Wagner’s paramilitaries in the Ukrainian cities of Popasna, Severodonetsk and Lissychansk, which were conquered by Russia.
On Saturday morning, in a separate message, Prigozhin thanked Kadyrov for the proposal, assuring that Bakhmut, which has resisted Russian attacks, “will undoubtedly be taken by Chechen troops.”
Explosion Wounds Pro-Kremlin Writer
In yet another incident involving Putin’s allies, Russian nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin, a staunch supporter of the Kremlin’s military offensive in Ukraine, was injured on Saturday after an explosive detonated positioned in the car he was riding in. The explosion killed the writer’s driver, announced Russia’s Investigative Committee, which opened an investigation for a “terrorist act.”
Moscow immediately blamed Ukraine and its Western allies for the attack. The incident happened in the Nizhny Novgorod region of west-central Russia, where the writer was born. The ministry reported the arrest of a suspect.
Medical and security forces sources who requested anonymity, quoted by Russian news agencies, said Prilepin suffered injuries to his legs. According to Investigative Committee, the writer was in the car “with his family” when the explosion occurred. “Zakhar (Prilepin) suffered minor fractures, his life is not in danger,” the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region said on Telegram.
After the first information about the explosion was released, Russian diplomatic spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Ukraine, the United States, the United Kingdom and NATO of involvement in the “terrorist” act.
A prominent figure in the Russian literary scene, with books translated into several languages, the 47-year-old writer has been engaged since 2014 with the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and fought alongside the insurgents. Since then, this veteran of the Chechen wars in the 1990s travels frequently to eastern Ukraine. He defends Putin and his offensive against the neighboring country, which begins on February 24, 2022.
(With information from AFP)