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Wagner Group forces have She took control of Rostov-on-DonIn the south of Russia, according to the head of the organization Yevgeny Prigozhin on Saturday (June 24). Once a staunch ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prigozhin has stepped up what Putin referred to as an “armed rebellion.”
According to Prigozhin, his forces control Rostov’s military facilities, including the all-important airport, which Russian forces use to launch attacks on Ukraine during the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Prigozhin vowed to besiege Rostov and move to Moscow if the Russian Minister of Defense and senior generals did not meet him in the city tonight.
What happened?
On Friday (June 23), Prigozhin accused the Russian forces of launching a missile attack that killed dozens of his fighters. While the grizzled leader of the Wagner Group had recently been involved in a frosty relationship with the country’s top military officers, this was a new low.
Immediately escalating the matter, Prigozhin vowed to march on Rostov in retaliation. Over the course of last night and this morning, his forces arrived in the city and took control of military installations. While a number of unverified videos of Wagner’s forces in Rostov-on-Don are circulating, it remains unclear whether Russian regular forces and Wagner’s forces clashed in the city.
What is clear, however, is that as things stand, there is a significant presence of Wagner forces in the city with Prigozhin releasing a video earlier today, in which he claimed to be inside and in control of the city’s military command center.
But why Rostov?
Rostov-on-Don is the largest city in southwestern Russia, home to one million people, and the administrative center of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. This region borders eastern Ukraine, where the Russian-Ukrainian conflict still rages.
The city itself is only about 100km from the border, and lies along the main road between the border with Ukraine’s Donbass region and Moscow, about 1,100km to the north.
Thus, it is an important command and logistical center for the Russian military, as it houses the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District, whose 58-arms unified army is participating in operations against Kiev’s counter-offensive in southern Ukraine, according to DW.
Moreover, Rostov is also the main base of the command center of the Russian Joint Forces Group in Ukraine as a whole.
What are the biggest implications of this development?
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), any threat to Russia’s military presence in the city could have far-reaching ramifications for the outcome of the war.
Some observers have gone so far as to say that this is a turning point in the war in Ukraine.
“Taking control of Rostov-on-Don, or at least the part of Rostov-on-Don where the Russian army headquarters is located, is an unprecedented step and shows how vulnerable the Russian army is,” Roman Goncharenko, international correspondent for DW, told.
However, Prigozhin himself assured that Russia’s war effort would not be hampered. In his statement earlier today, he said that while his fighters were taking control of an airport, the planes involved in the Ukraine attack were “departing as usual” from the airport.
“We put (the airport) under control so that the attacking aviation did not hit us, but the Ukrainians,” said Prigozhin. He added, “We came here to stop the shame in the country in which we live… We are saving Russia.”
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