The head of Russia’s private military company Wagner will relocate to neighboring Belarus and the criminal case against him will be dropped as part of an agreement to defuse insurgency tensions, the Kremlin said on Saturday. Yevgeny Prigozhin’s troops who joined him in the uprising will not be prosecuted, and those who did not will be offered contracts by the Defense Ministry, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
After the deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was reached, Prigozhin said he would order his troops to halt their march on Moscow and retreat to bases in Ukraine, where they had been fighting alongside Russian troops. The deal appeared to defuse a dramatically escalating crisis that has posed the greatest challenge for President Vladimir Putin in his more than two decades in power.
Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed on Saturday to protect the country from an armed uprising called by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, which Putin described as a “stab in the back” for Russia. “All those who prepared the uprising will inevitably be punished. “The armed forces and other government agencies have received the necessary orders,” Putin said in a televised address to the nation.
Prigozhin, owner of private military company Wagner, confirmed Saturday morning that he and his troops had reached Rostov, a key Russian city, after crossing the border from Ukraine. He later said they were marching towards Moscow. Hours later, however, he announced that he had ordered his troops to stop and return to Ukraine.
Prigozhin released a video of himself in Rostov-on-Don at the Russian military headquarters, which monitors fighting in Ukraine. He claimed that his forces controlled military installations in the city, including the airfield. Other videos posted on social media showed military vehicles, including tanks, on the streets outside.
On Saturday, Prigozhin denied Putin’s allegations that he was betraying his country and called his fighters patriots. In an audio message on his Telegram channel, Prigozhin said: “As for the betrayal of the Motherland, the President was deeply mistaken.” We are patriots of our homeland. He said his fighters would not accept Putin’s request because “we don’t want the country to live on in corruption, fraud and bureaucracy.”
Later on Saturday, Wagner fighters had entered the Lipetsk region, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Moscow, local authorities said, while confirming the column’s advance towards the Russian capital.
Wagner paramilitaries “are moving deeper into the territory of the Lipetsk region,” regional governor Igor Artamonov wrote on Telegram. “Law enforcement agencies and authorities are taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety of the population. The situation is under control,” he added.
As Prigozhin’s forces rolled toward the capital, military trucks and armored vehicles were spotted in several parts of Moscow. On its southern edge, troops set up checkpoints, set up sandbags, and set up machine guns.
The authorities proclaimed an “anti-terrorist regime” in the capital and the surrounding region, which increased security and partially restricted freedom of movement.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin urged residents not to drive and said key city services were on high alert. He declared Monday a day off for most residents, with the exception of civil servants and some industrial companies.
The crews also excavated sections of highways, apparently to slow the march of the Wagner mercenary army. Access to Red Square was blocked, two major museums were evacuated and a park was closed.
But as the hours went by, the head of Russia’s private military force, Wagner, said later on Saturday he had ordered his mercenaries to halt their march on Moscow and retreat to their camps in Ukraine to avoid shedding Russian blood.
Prigozhin: Wagner will “destroy anyone who stands in our way”
Putin condemned the uprising at a time when Russia was “fighting its toughest battle for its future” with its war in Ukraine. “The entire military, economic and information machinery of the West is directed against us,” Putin said.
Prigozhin said his troops had not encountered any resistance from young conscripts at checkpoints entering Russia from Ukraine, and said his troops “did not fight children.”
“But we will crush anyone who stands in our way,” he said in a series of angry video and audio footage posted to social media beginning late Friday. “We’ll keep going and we’ll hold out until the end.”
The Russian security services responded to Prigozhin’s announcement of an armed uprising by demanding that he be arrested. In a sign of how seriously the Kremlin took the threat, authorities in and around Moscow declared an “anti-terrorist regime” that restricted freedoms and increased security in the capital.
It was not immediately clear how Prigozhin managed to get into the southern Russian city and how many troops he had with him.
Prigozhin claimed that Wagner camps in Ukraine were hit by rockets, helicopter gunships and artillery fire on orders from the Chief of General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov, after a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was held in Rostov, at which it was decided to destroy Wagner. He also said his forces shot down a Russian military helicopter that was firing at a civilian convoy, but there was no independent confirmation.
Prigozhin said he has 25,000 troops under his command and will punish Shoigu with an armed uprising, urging the army not to resist: “This is not a military coup, but a march of justice.”
While the outcome of the confrontation was still unclear, it appeared to further hamper Moscow’s war effort as Kiev forces probed Russian defenses in the early stages of a counteroffensive. The dispute, especially if Prigozhin wins, could also affect Putin and his ability to maintain a united front.
Zelenskyy: Moscow suffers from “all-over weakness”
The Ukrainians hoped that the Russian fighting would open up opportunities for their army to retake territories captured by Russian forces.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow was suffering from “all-encompassing weakness” and Kiev was protecting Europe from “the spread of Russian evil and chaos.”
Wagner’s forces played a crucial role in the Russian war in Ukraine and managed to capture the city of Bakhmut, where the bloodiest and longest battles took place. But Prigozhin increasingly criticizes Russia’s military leadership, accusing it of incompetence and the lack of weapons and ammunition for its troops.
On Friday, the National Counter-Terrorism Committee, part of the Federal Security Service (FSB), accused Prigozhin of calling for an armed uprising, which could be punished with up to 20 years in prison.
The FSB called on Wagner’s contract soldiers to arrest Prigozhin and refuse to follow his “criminal and treacherous orders”. She described his comments as “a stab in the back of Russian troops” and said they amounted to incitement to armed conflict.
Heavy military trucks and armored vehicles were sighted in several parts of central Moscow early on Saturday, and soldiers with assault rifles were on duty in front of the main building of the Defense Ministry. The area around the presidential administration near Red Square was closed and there were traffic delays.
But despite the increased military presence, downtown bars and restaurants were packed with customers. At a club near the FSB headquarters, people were dancing in the street near the entrance.
Prigozhin, whose dispute with the defense ministry dates back years, has refused to comply with demands that military contractors sign contracts with the ministry before July 1. In a statement late Friday, he said he was willing to find a compromise, but “they have deceitfully betrayed us.”
“Today they launched a missile attack on our rear camps and killed a large number of our comrades,” Prigozhin said. The Ministry of Defense denied an attack on the Wagner camps.
“The evil that embodies the country’s military leadership must be stopped,” he cried.
Colonel-General Sergey Surovikin, the deputy commander of the Russian force group fighting in Ukraine, urged Wagner forces to halt any moves against the army, saying this would play into the hands of Russia’s enemies who are “waiting to wait.” . Aggravation of our domestic political situation.”
Tatiana Stanovaya, a political analyst, predicted that this would mean the end of Prigozhin.
“Once the state has actively engaged there is no turning back,” she tweeted. “The departure of Prigozhin and Wagner is imminent. The only option now is absolute annihilation, the only variable being the level of resistance from the Wagner group. Surovikin was dispatched to persuade them to surrender. A confrontation seems completely pointless.”
Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, a senior military officer, described Prigozhin’s actions as “madness” that threatened civil war.
“It’s a slap in the back to the country and the president… Such a provocation could only be staged by enemies of Russia,” he said.
The Defense Ministry said in a statement that Ukraine was concentrating its troops for an attack around Bakhmut to take advantage of “Prigozhin’s provocation”. Russian artillery and fighter jets were said to have fired on Ukrainian forces as they prepared an offensive.
In Washington, the Institute for the Study of War said, “The violent overthrow of Putin loyalists like Shoigu and Gerasimov would irreparably damage the stability of Putin’s supposed power grab.”
Speaking at the White House, National Security Council spokesman Adam Hodge said, “We are monitoring the situation and will consult with allies and partners on these developments.”
In Kiev on Saturday, at least two people were killed and eight injured in a Russian missile attack when falling debris caused a fire on several floors of a 24-story apartment building in a central district, Serhii Popko, the city’s military administration head, posted on Telegram.
He said more than 20 missiles had been detected and destroyed. Video from the crime scene showed a fire in the building’s upper floors and the parking lot littered with ash and debris.
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