"If the elder brother Prigozhin and Wagner leave, then the General Staff will lose an experienced combat unit, and his younger brother Kadyrov and Akhmat will come in his place in Artyomovsk," he said.
Kadyrov stressed that the fighters are ready to occupy the city. The head of Chechnya noted that he would like to take the remaining two kilometers through mutual understanding and support, and not at the cost of the lives of soldiers.
Earlier, Prigozhin said that the Wagner PMC would leave Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) on May 10.
According to him, the fighters will leave the city, handing over the occupied positions to the units of the Russian Defense Ministry.
He also said that during the fighting in the NVO zone, PMC fighters destroyed 38 thousand soldiers fighting on the side of the Ukrainian army, 32 thousand of them in Soledar, Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) and its environs.