Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, has tonight halted his march on Moscow, in return for assurances from the Kremlin on his men’s safety. Alexander Lukashenko, Belarusian president, brokered the agreement. Prigozhin has just released the following statement on Telegram:
We marched out on June 23 on the Justice March. In one day, we got within 200 kilometers of Moscow. During this time we did not spill a single drop of blood of our fighters. Now comes the moment when blood may be spilled. Therefore, understanding the responsibility that Russian blood will be spilled on one side, we are turning our columns around and retreating in the opposite direction to the field camps.
There is no sign yet of what will happen to the “field camps” that Prigozhin refers to: the city of Voronezh, 350 miles south of Moscow and Rostov, home of Russia’s military in the south which has been seized. The governor of Lipetsk, 260 miles south of Moscow, says that Wagner troops are in his area. What happens now is the key question: Putin earlier ordered his army to crush Prigozhin. If he fails to act, or to capture or punish the man who just staged the first attempted coup on thirty years, it will be perceived as a humiliation for the Russian president.
The dispute between Prigozhin and Putin’s military commanders has been simmering for weeks. The warlord’s open criticisms of the Kremlin have led to tensions which, he says, led to his men being attacked by Russian forces. In one his many audio releases (he prefers Telegram recordings to statements) Prigozhin declared his rebellion on Friday night:
We have been dying in Bakhmut, defending the honor of Russia and the Russian army. They vilely deceived us, tried to deprive us of the opportunity to defend our homes and disperse the Wagner PMC. We were ready to make concessions to the Ministry of Defense, surrender our weapons and find a solution on how we would continue to defend our country. But these scum did not calm down. Seeing that we are not broken they launched strikes, rocket attacks on our rear camps. A huge number of our fighters, our comrades-in-arms, have died. We will decide how we will respond to this atrocity. The next step is ours.
There are signs that Prigozhin was aided by elements in Russia’s military. His troops seemed to encounter no resistance when they arrived at the million-strong city of Rostov, an hour from the Ukrainian border and base to the Russian army in the south. The Kremlin has denied reports that Putin fled to St. Petersburg, claiming that he’s working in Moscow.
Putin’s televised address this morning (transcript here) denounced Prigozhin’s “stab in the back” and threatened reprisal. “Those who organized and prepared the military rebellion, who raised arms against their comrades-in-arms, betrayed Russia — they will be held accountable for it,” he said. This jars with Wagner’s claims that the Kremlin has agreed some kind of amnesty for its 25,000 fighters.
As proof of coming within striking distance of Moscow, a Wagner soldier released a video from Voronezh where one of its mercenaries claimed to have shot down three helicopters and one transport plane. “We have heavy ammunition,” he says. “Now we will move only to Moscow. The request of the armed forces not to resist us. Victory will be ours.” A Russian human rights organization, Gulagu.net claims that Prigozhin was stockpiling ammunition for two months and lying about “shell famine.”
There were not many signs of people backing Wagner’s coup, which may explain this evening’s retreat. Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechen leader, rallied to Putin’s call, denouncing Prigozhin’s advance as “a knife in the back and a real military mutiny.” He said that Chechen fighters are now heading towards “the areas of tension.” “The rebellion must be crushed, and if this requires harsh measures, then we are ready!” he said in a Telegram statement.
The M4 motorway leading from the south to Moscow was not just closed to traffic. Videos from Telegram channels appear to show military trucks and tanks gathering on the approaches to Moscow, with the Kremlin announcing the start of a “counter-terrorist” operation in the Voronezh region. This would have complicated any serious tank-based invasion.
Prigozhin says his 25,000 troops were ready to “end this mess” and that “the evil that the country’s military leadership perpetuates must be stopped.” He also says his incursion exposed that the Ukraine counter-offensive is succeeding more than the Kremlin let on. “The Russian army is retreating in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. Ukrainian troops are advancing,” he said this morning. “When we arrived here [Rostov] we confirmed a number of new things. Huge parts of [Ukrainian] territories have been lost. The number of [Russian] soldiers killed is three to four times what is being reported to the top… Total casualties are up to 1,000 people on some days.”
Zelensky said that the episode exposes the futility of the Ukraine invasion. “The longer Russia keeps its troops and mercenaries on our land, the more chaos, pain, and problems it will have for itself later. It is also obvious. Ukraine is able to protect Europe from the spread of Russian evil and chaos.”
The Duma, regional governors and several prominent army figures have called on Russian citizens to support Putin and protect the motherland, but no one of note has come out in support of Prigozhin. This would suggest that the Kremlin’s efforts to pressure key decision-makers was effective. We’ll bring you more news as we get it.
Reporting and translation from John Connolly, Lisa Haseldine, James Heale, Svitlana Morenets and Michael Simmons. This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.
