Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has mocked the battlefield achievements of the Wagner Group chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, as a dispute between the two key figures in Russia's full-scale invasion continues to ramp up.
The pair's disdain for how Russia is conducting the war is probably the only thing they agree on. But Prigozhin seemed to put Kadyrov's nose out of joint when he suggested last month that the Chechen units under Kadyrov's command could not hold all of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in Ukraine.
A Kadyrov ally, Adam Delimkhanov, responded to the slight by questioning Prigozhin's military bona fides by disparaging him as merely "a blogger who screams and shouts to the world."
But Prigozhin said that the pair had buried the hatchet after he received a phone call from Kadyrov. The Wagner founder also suggested that a group in the Kremlin may have been stoking the conflict between the men's forces.
However, Kadyrov demonstrated that the feud still festers in a lengthy Telegram post on Friday in which he appeared to defend President Vladimir Putin, who he is fiercely loyal to, and condemned Prigozhin for his criticism of his Akhmat troops.
"In the difficult conditions of war when the West clings to our every word," Kadryov's post said, "I consider such public showdowns and criticism of the leadership to be wrong."
Kadyrov said that while he had criticized the Russian Defense Ministry over its conduct in the war, "I understood one simple thing—you can see better from the perspective of the supreme commander-in-chief. If the decisions and measures suit him, then they are correct for Russia."
The Chechen leader then said that despite the phone call, Prigozhin had again made "an ironic statement" that Chechen fighters could only liberate a few settlements and not the DPR as a whole.
But Kadyrov said his troops had "liberated" 36 settlements, including Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, and the city center of Popasna in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic.
He also said that Mariupol, the city Russia seized after a long siege, had been taken with far fewer troops, and in a much shorter time than Bakhmut, for whose capture Prigozhin has claimed bragging rights. "Which units after that can be considered more effective?" wrote Kadyrov, "the answer is obvious."
"Also note that we have never allowed and do not allow irony, sarcasm, or veiled accusations against Wagner fighters," the post added.
Prigozhin's forces took heavy casualties during the 224-day siege of Bakhmut before he claimed in May that the Donetsk city had been captured, although Ukraine insists that it is still fighting on its outskirts.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank said on June 3 that the reported phone call between the pair suggests that Prigozhin was "concerned" about having a prominent figure like Kadyrov aligned against him. Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.
