Wagner private military company founder and financier Yevgeny Prigozhin has called for the entire Russian society to be mobilized, saying people are ready to contribute to Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine. "It is not only the mobilized who should be mobilized, those who go to the front, but all the society should be mobilized,” Prigozhin said in an audio posted on his Telegram channel, in reaction to Russia’s new electronic conscription bill. Unlike Prigozhin, the Russian government continues to deny it is waging a war in Ukraine, referring to the conflict as a "special military operation." The Wagner leader criticized Russian officials who fled the country with their wealth and said the whole "system" needs to be shaken. "The system requires global sanitation and a reduction in the number of participants in this bureaucratic community."

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