LONDON – Russia accused mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin of armed mutiny on Friday after he alleged, with out offering proof, that the navy management had killed an enormous variety of his fighters in an air strike and vowed to punish them.
The standoff, lots of whose particulars remained unclear, appeared like the most important home disaster President Vladimir Putin has confronted since he ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine — one thing he known as a “special military operation” — in February final 12 months.
As the standoff between Prigozhin, founding father of the Wagner mercenary pressure, and the protection ministry appeared to come back to a head, the ministry issued an announcement saying Prigozhin’s accusations have been “not true and are an informational provocation”.
Prigozhin stated his actions weren’t a navy coup. But in a frenzied sequence of audio messages, wherein the sound of his voice generally diverse and couldn’t be independently verified, he appeared to recommend that 25,000 fighters have been en path to oust the leaders of the protection institution in Moscow.
He stated: “Those who destroyed our lads, who destroyed the lives of many tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, will be punished. I ask that no one offer resistance …
“There are 25,000 of us and we’re going to work out why chaos is going on within the nation,” he said, promising to tackle any checkpoints or air forces that got in Wagner’s way.
At about 2 a.m. on Saturday morning, Moscow time (2300 GMT), Prigozhin issued a new message saying his forces had crossed the border from Ukraine, and were in the southern Russian city of Rostov.
He said they were ready to “go all the best way” against the top brass, and to destroy anyone who stood in their way.
At around the same time, the state news agency TASS quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying all Russia’s main security services were reporting to Putin “around the clock” on the fulfilment of his orders with respect to Prigozhin.
Security was being tightened in Moscow, TASS said, focusing on what it called the capital’s most important government sites and infrastructure.
Earlier on Friday, Prigozhin had appeared to cross a new line in his increasingly vitriolic feud with the ministry, saying that the Kremlin’s rationale for invading Ukraine was based on lies concocted by the army’s top brass.
The FSB domestic security service said it had opened a criminal case against him for calling for an armed mutiny, a crime punishable with a jail term of up to 20 years.
“Prigozhin’s statements are in actual fact requires the beginning of an armed civil battle on Russian territory and his actions are a ‘stab within the again’ of Russian servicemen combating pro-fascist Ukrainian forces,” the FSB said.
“We urge the … fighters to not make irreparable errors, to cease any forcible actions towards the Russian individuals, to not perform the legal and traitorous orders of Prigozhin, to take measures to detain him.”
Generals urge Prigozhin to back down
Army Lieutenant-General Vladimir Alekseyev issued a video appeal asking Prigozhin to reconsider his actions.
“Only the president has the proper to nominate the highest management of the armed forces, and you are attempting to encroach on his authority,” he said.
Army General Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russian forces in Ukraine whom Prigozhin has praised in the past, in a separate video said that “the enemy is simply ready for our inside political state of affairs to deteriorate”.
“Before it’s too late … you could undergo the need and order of the individuals’s president of the Russian Federation. Stop the columns and return them to their everlasting bases,” he said.
Prigozhin, whose men spearheaded the capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut last month, has for months been openly accusing Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, of rank incompetence and of denying Wagner ammunition and support.
An unverified video posted on a Telegram channel close to Wagner showed the purported scene of an air strike against Wagner forces. It showed a forest where small fires were burning and trees appeared to have been broken by force. There appeared to be one body, but no more direct evidence of any attack.
It carried the caption: “A missile assault was launched on the camps of PMC (Private Military Company) Wagner. Many victims. According to eyewitnesses, the strike was delivered from the rear, that’s, it was delivered by the navy of the Russian Ministry of Defense.”
Prigozhin has tried to exploit Wagner’s battlefield success, achieved at enormous human cost, to publicly berate Moscow with seeming impunity, while carefully avoiding criticism of Putin.
But on Friday he for the first time dismissed Putin’s core justifications for invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, something for which many Russians have been fined or jailed.
“The conflict was wanted … in order that Shoigu may turn into a marshal … in order that he may get a second ‘Hero’ [of Russia] medal,” Prigozhin said in a video clip. “The conflict wasn’t wanted to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine.”
Marat Gabidullin, a former Wagner commander who moved to France when Russia invaded Ukraine, told Reuters that Wagner’s fighters were likely to stand with Prigozhin.
“We have appeared down on the military for a very long time … Of course they assist him, he’s their chief,” he said.
“They will not hesitate (to struggle the military), if anybody will get of their method.” —Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
