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Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to crush what he called an armed rebellion after rebel mercenary commander Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday he had taken control of a southern city as part of an attempt to overthrow the military leadership.
The dramatic shift, with many details blurred, looked like the biggest domestic crisis Putin has faced since he ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine – which he called a “special military operation” – in February of last year.
In a televised speech, Putin said that “excessive ambitions and vested interests led to treachery”, and called the rebellion a “stab in the back”.
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It is a blow to Russia and our people. And our actions to defend the homeland against such a threat will be severe.”
Putin said: “All those who deliberately stepped on the path of treason, who prepared an armed rebellion, took the path of blackmail and terrorist methods, will suffer inevitable punishment, and they will obey the law and our people.”
Prigozhin has demanded that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, who has vowed to bring him down over what he says is their disastrous leadership of the war against Ukraine, come to see him in Rostov, a city near Ukraine. The boundaries he said he controlled.
He had said he had 25,000 fighters who would “restore justice” and claimed, without providing evidence, that the military had killed a large number of fighters from his Wagner militia in an airstrike, something the Ministry of Defense denied.
Prigozhin’s Wagner militia took the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut last month, and for months had been publicly accusing Shoigu and Gerasimov of incompetence and denying Wagner ammunition and support.
On Friday, he appeared to cross a new line in the dispute, saying Putin’s stated rationale for invading Ukraine 16 months ago was based on lies concocted by senior military officers.
“The war was necessary … for Shoigu to become marshals … so that he could receive a second ‘Hero’ order (of Russia),” Prigozhin said in a video.
“The war was not necessary to disarm or disarm Ukraine,” he said, referring to Putin’s justifications for the war.
In one of many frenzied voice messages overnight, he then made it clear that he was moving against the military.
“Those who destroyed our sons, who ruined the lives of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, will be punished. I ask that no one resist … “
“There are 25,000 of us and we will find out why there is chaos in the country,” he said, promising to destroy any checkpoints or air forces that were in Wagner’s way. He later said that his men were involved in clashes with regular soldiers and shot down a helicopter.
A Russian security source told Reuters that Wagner fighters also took control of military facilities in the city of Voronezh, about 500 km south of Moscow. Reuters could not independently confirm this assertion or many of the details provided by Prigozhin.
Russia’s Federal Security Service opened a criminal case against Prigozhin for armed rebellion and said his statements were “calls for the start of an armed civil conflict on Russian territory”.
She added, “We urge … the fighters not to make irreparable mistakes, to stop any coercive actions against the Russian people, not to carry out Prigozhin’s criminal and treacherous orders, and to take measures to arrest him.”
The official Tass news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that all major Russian security agencies report to Putin “around the clock”.
Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on his Telegram channel that security measures have been tightened in Moscow.
A White House spokesman said US President Joe Biden was briefed on the situation in Washington.
military transport
Around 2 a.m. (2300 GMT), Prigozhin posted a message on his Telegram app saying his forces were in Rostov and ready to “go to the extreme” against senior officers and destroy anyone who stood in their way.
At around 5 a.m. (0200 GMT), the Voronezh region administration, on the M-4 highway between the regional capital Rostov-on-Don and Moscow, said on Telegram that a military convoy was on the highway and urged residents to avoid using it.
Unconfirmed footage posted on social media showed a convoy of assorted military vehicles, including at least one tank and an armored vehicle on flatbed trucks. It was not clear where they were or whether the covered trucks in the convoy contained fighters. Some of the vehicles were flying the Russian flag.
Footage broadcast by channels based in Rostov-on-Don showed armed men in military uniforms walking around the headquarters of the regional police in the city, as well as tanks stationed outside the headquarters of the Southern Military District.
Reuters confirmed the locations shown but could not say when the footage was taken.
Prigozhin denied that he was attempting a military coup.
He said he led his fighters out of Ukraine to Rostov, where a video broadcast by a pro-Wagner Telegram channel showed him, apparently relaxed, chatting with two generals at the headquarters of Russia’s huge Southern Military District.
The video showed him telling the generals: “We have come here, we want to receive the Chief of the General Staff and Shoigu. Unless they come, we will be here, surround Rostov and head for Moscow.”
Russian local officials said a military convoy was indeed on the main highway linking the southern part of European Russia to Moscow, and warned residents to avoid it.
Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev—who later appeared with Prigozhin in a video from Rostov-on-Don—issued a video plea asking Prigozhin to reconsider his actions.
“Only the president has the right to appoint the supreme command of the armed forces, and you are trying to encroach on his authority,” he said.
An unverified video on a Telegram channel close to Wagner showed the alleged scene of an airstrike against Wagner’s forces. The image showed a forest where fires were burning and trees appeared to have been forcibly smashed. There appears to be one dead body, but there is no longer direct evidence of any attack.
The comment was quoted: “A missile attack was launched on the camps of the private military company Wagner. Many victims. According to eyewitnesses, the strike was carried out from behind, that is, by the army of the Russian Defense Ministry.
The Ministry of Defense said the allegations were false.
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