Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin prior to a meeting with business leaders held by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping (both not pictured) at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, in 2017. File Photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA
Dec. 22 (UPI) — The United States believes North Korea has delivered rockets and missiles to the Wagner Group, the infamous Russian private military company, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Thursday.
“Today we can confirm that North Korea has completed an initial arms delivery to Wagner, which paid for that equipment,” Kirby said, according to NBC News.
“Last month, North Korea delivered infantry rockets and missiles into Russia for use by Wagner.”
Kirby also said Thursday that U.S. officials believe that Russian military officials are “actually subordinate” to the Wagner Group, CNN reported.
“It’s pretty apparent to us that Wagner is emerging as a rival power center to the Russian military and other Russian ministries,” Kirby said.
The Wagner Group was founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is said to have significant influence on the Kremlin.
More than 50,000 personnel hired by the Wagner Group have been deployed to Ukraine, Kirby said, adding that 40,000 of them are believed to have been recruited from inside Russian prisons including some solicited by Prigozhin himself.
“It seems as though Mr. Prigozhin is willing to just throw Russian bodies into the meat grinder in Bakhmut. In fact, about 1,000 Wagner fighters have been killed in the fighting in just recent weeks, and we believe that 90% of those 1,000 fighters were, in fact, convicts,” Kirby said.
British government officials who spoke to the BBC said that the number of Wagner mercenaries in Ukraine has risen to nearly 20,000, lower than U.S. estimates but still significant.
Like Kirby, the British officials said that Wagner has targeted Russian prisons for recruitment and their numbers now make up at least 10% of all Russian boots on the ground as Moscow moves from a strategy of quality to quantity.
Prigozhin’s press service, in a statement on Telegram, called Kirby’s comments “nothing more than gossip and speculation.”
“We buy quite a lot of American weapons. And therefore, most likely, my lawyers will be actively involved in the process of lifting U.S. sanctions on the supply of weapons to PMC Wagner,” the statement reads.
“We consider these restrictions absolutely unfair, due to the fact that the Wagner PMC has never violated international trade rules when buying American weapons.”
The Wagner Group and Prigozhin have both under U.S. and European Union sanctions.
