The leader of the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group backtracked on his threat to withdraw his troops from the front lines of the war in Ukraine.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin accused Russian Ministry of Defense leaders of withholding key ammunition and resources from his troops in February; he escalated those accusations late last week, culminating in him saying he'd pull his troops in the coming days because, according to Prigozhin, he's suffering "useless and unjustified" losses as a result.

UKRAINE SHOULD 'DOUBLE DOWN' AMID RUSSIAN RIFT WITH MERCENARY LEADER, AMBASSADOR URGES

He declared that his men would leave Bakhmut by May 10, with their position in and around Bakhmut, where the war has largely been concentrated for months, transferred to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s forces. Prigozhin has since gotten concessions from the Russian Ministry of Defense.

"We have been promised as much ammunition and weapons as we need to continue further operations. We have been promised that everything needed to prevent the enemy from cutting us off [from supplies] will be deployed," he said on Telegram on Sunday, adding that his troops "are moving forward. We are expecting to receive ammunition."

Last week, Prigozhin accused Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov of being responsible for the deaths of his troops, whose bodies were featured in the video message.

“Shoigu, Gerasimov,” Prigozhin said. “These are somebody’s [expletive] fathers and somebody’s sons. And those [expletive] who don’t give us ammunition will be in hell eating their guts.”

Wagner has roughly 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, many of whom were Russian prisoners offered pardons in exchange for fighting in the war and surviving it. Last week, the Biden administration revealed that Russia had accumulated approximately 100,000 casualties in Bakhmut since December 2022, 20,000 of whom were killed in action, while nearly half of the soldiers who were killed were mercenaries, officials said.

The battle for Bakhmut, which has gone on for months, has been the most intense of the conflict, with both sides losing significant casualties. U.S. officials have described Russian losses in the region as "literally throwing bodies into the meat grinder."

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

This tension between Prigozhin and the Defense Ministry comes as Ukraine is preparing for its highly anticipated counteroffensive, expected to be launched in the coming weeks and bolstered by billions of dollars of military aid from the U.S. and other Western allies.

“The expectation from our counteroffensive campaign is overestimated in the world,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told the Washington Post this week. “Most people are … waiting for something huge,” he said, adding that he fears it could lead to “emotional disappointment.”