The press service of the head of PMC Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, published a video of the interrogation of Lieutenant Colonel Roman Venevitin, commander of the 72nd Motorized Rifle Brigade, by the Wagnerites.
In the video, a man with a damaged nose bridge is standing in the basement. He admits that he ordered the disarmament of the Wagner PMC's rapid response group, as well as the firing of the Ural vehicle in which the mercenaries were located. Venevitin claims that he did this “out of personal dislike”, and when asked how his actions can be characterized, he answers “guilty”.
Before that, Prigozhin's press service published a report according to which the "Wagnerites" entered into a shootout with servicemen of the Russian Defense Ministry near the village of Semigorye, located not far from Bakhmut.
According to the document, this happened on May 17, when the mercenaries discovered that the military was mining the retreat routes for Wagner PMCs. When the "Wagnerites" tried to clear the road, they were fired upon from the positions of the Russian troops. Allegedly, during a short battle, the Ural car, which Venevitin speaks of, was damaged, and the mercenaries took measures to “eliminate aggression and detain the military personnel of the Russian Defense Ministry.”
Earlier, the appeal of the employees of the “Storm” detachment of the 72nd motorized rifle brigade was circulated in social networks. They said that the commander of the brigade, that is, Roman Venevitin, threatened to shoot the commander of their detachment for retreating from the positions to which the military was sent without the support of artillery and communication with the command. At the same time, the servicemen mentioned that along the way they met detachments consisting of Wagner PMC mercenaries.
The fact that the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation had mined the retreat routes from Bakhmut for the “Wagnerites” was first reported by Prigogine on June 2. According to him, "about a dozen places" were found where anti-tank mines and "tons of plastid" were laid.