Russia's entire front line will collapse if it doesn't take key city, says mercenary boss, accusing regular army of starving his troops of ammo

• Yevgeny Prigozhin said the Russian front line will collapse if Wagner Group men don't hold Bakhmut.
• In a video circulated over the weekend, he called for more support from the regular Russian army.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the pro-Kremlin Wagner Group mercenary army, said that Russia's entire front line will collapse if his fighters don't take the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

"If Wagner retreats from Bakhmut now, the whole front will collapse," he said, per Reuters' translation of a video that appeared online over the weekend.

Prigozhin predicted that the battleline would crumble "up to the Russian borders, and maybe even further," should his forces move back, according to a translation shared by Ukrainian interior ministry advisor Anton Geraschenko.

Prigozhin went on to complain about "shell hunger" and a lack of support from the Russian army. In an apparent follow-up post, his company said that promised reinforcements of men and ammunition had not arrived, hinting at either inefficiencies or deliberate sabotage.

The Wagner Group's attempts to take Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine, has seen one of the longest and bloodiest battles in the war. On Friday, a Ukrainian commander described the situation as "critical," while Prigozhin said his forces had almost entirely surrounded the city.

An assessment of the situation in Bakhmut by US think tank the Institute for the Study of War said that as of Sunday Ukrainian forces were likely conducting a limited tactical withdrawal, but that it is not clear whether a full withdrawal is being contemplated.

It remains unclear how accurate Prigozhin's bleak assessment of the Russian front line is. He has stoked a long-running feud with Russia's regular army leaders over support for his fighters and credit for their role in the war.

In the video, which didn't appear on the Concord Group social media channels, which he usually uses for public communications – but was instead published on a channel that regularly shares Prigozhin news – Prigozhin also suggested that Wagner was being set up as a scapegoat for Russia's failures in the war.

"If we retreat, then we will go down in history forever as people who have taken the main step towards losing the war," he said, per Reuters' translation.