New Delhi: Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary rebels, said on Saturday that he has ordered his mercenaries to stop their march on Moscow to avoid shedding Russian blood, reports AP news agency. Rebel Russian mercenaries stormed Moscow on Saturday after capturing the southern city overnight, with Russian forces attacking them from the air but failing to halt their rapid advance. President Vladimir Putin, who faced the first serious threat to his 23-year rule, vowed to crush an armed rebellion he compared to Russia’s civil war a century ago. Fighters from Wagner’s private army, led by former Putin aide Yevgeny Prigozhin, were already close to the capital, having captured the city of Rostov and advanced 1,100 km (680 mi) towards Moscow.
Troop carriers and a flatbed truck with tanks were speeding through the city of Voronezh, halfway to Moscow, when a helicopter fired upon them, news agency Reuters reported. But there were no reports of the rebels facing any significant resistance on the highway. Russian media showed pictures of small groups of police manning machine gun posts on the southern outskirts of Moscow. Authorities in the Lipetsk region south of the capital told residents to stay home.
More than 100 firefighters were tackling a blaze at a fuel depot in Voronezh. Video footage obtained by Reuters showed a fireball exploding shortly after a helicopter took off. Prigozhin accused the Russian army of attacking civilian targets from the air as he tried to slow the progress of the column.
Prigozhin says his men are on a “march for justice” to remove corrupt and incompetent commanders whom he blames for mishandling the war in Ukraine. In a televised address from the Kremlin, Putin said Russia’s existence was in danger. “We are fighting for the life and safety of our people, for our sovereignty and independence, for the right to remain Russia, a state with a thousand-year history,” he said.
“All those who deliberately set foot on the path of betrayal, who prepared armed insurrection, who took the path of blackmail and terroristic methods, will suffer inevitable punishment, answer both to the law and to our people.” The defiant Prigozhin immediately replied that he and his men had no intention of changing themselves.
“When the President talks about treason, he makes a grave mistake. We are patriots of our Motherland, we fought and are fighting for it, Prigozhin said in an audio message. “We do not want the country to remain mired in corruption, deceit and bureaucracy.”
Prigozhin, whose private army fought some of the most brutal fighting in Ukraine even as he feuded with top officers for months, said he stormed the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District in Rostov without firing a shot. was captured. In Rostov, which serves as the main logistics base for Russia’s entire invasion force, residents roamed around peacefully, filming on mobile phones as Wagner fighters marched past armored vehicles and battle tanks.