A bitter rift inside Vladimir Putin’s war machine is deepening with the boss of the Wagner private army demanding the son-in-law of Russia’s defence minister be conscripted.
Popular fitness influencer Alexey Stolyarov is going out with the daughter of loyalist defence minister Sergei Shoigu, Ksenia Shoigu.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, along with Shoigu, is a close Putin crony, but the two men loathe each other.
As President Putin’s army struggles in Ukraine, Prigozhin has begun firing accusations of state treason at defence chiefs in Moscow.
Last week, Mr Prigozhin lashed out at Mr Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s top military commander, over what he said was their failure to provide his Wagner fighters with munitions.
It was the first time in-fighting had happened since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Now, in a new onslaught, Prigozhin demanded that Stolyarov, who avoided the draft, should be trained for war.
He threatened that the blogger might be "raped" or face the notorious "sledgehammer" that Wagner has reportedly used to kill traitors.
“I can give instructions on what needs to be done - it is necessary to catch Stolyarov and bring him to me,” said Progozhin.
“I will train him for six weeks….“I will help him improve by sending him to combat operations. Before that he can be [raped].”
At least one convicted murderer Yevgeny Nuzhin, 55, was bludgeoned to death with a sledgehammer for deserting Wagner’s frontline and there are reports there were more such cases.
Prigozhin is seen as wanting General Shoigu to be fired, amid rumours he craves the defence minister’s job himself. He has also attacked Ksenia Shoigu for sunning herself in Dubai while the war is on.
Meanwhile, Stolyarov was recently seen hiking in Africa as many men of his age have been forced by his father-in-law to fight and die in Ukraine.
The influencer - who has 4.2 million subscribers on YouTube, and three-quarters of a million on Instagram - was hit by a wave of negative reactions to his African adventure.
Stolyarov claimed that he was being wrongly attacked by Prigozhin for “liking” an opposition post saying: “It has been precisely a year since Putin and his entourage unleashed bloody and meaningless war.”
The YouTuber was also falsely accused of labelling a woman ‘Z-trash” and telling her to go to the war, he said. “Please, have your own head on your shoulders, and don't allow yourself to be manipulated with the help of photoshop."
Shoigu last week released weapons and ammunition to Wagner after a previous onslaught from Prigozhin and the episode shows the poisonous warring relationships among the commanders Putin relies on for military success.
