STORY: "If Wagner retreats from Bakhmut now, the whole front will collapse," Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video published over the weekend. "The situation will not be sweet for all military formations protecting Russian interests."

Reuters could not independently verify when and where the video was recorded. The footage was published on a Telegram channel that has been disseminating Prigozhin news and has associated itself with the Wagner Group. The video was not published on Prigozhin's usual press service channel.

Prigozhin on Friday said that his units had "practically surrounded Bakhmut," where fighting has intensified in the past week with Russian forces attacking from nearly all sides.

But on Sunday he complained that most of the ammunition that his forces were promised by Moscow in February had not yet been shipped.