MOSCOW: The rebel Russian mercenary commander who ordered his troops to march on Moscow before abruptly changing course will move to neighboring Belarus and will not face prosecution, the Kremlin said on Saturday, de-escalating a crisis. That represents the most significant challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s more than two decades in power. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced that charges against Yevgeny Prigozhin for raising an armed rebellion would be dropped and that soldiers who joined him, and fighters from his Wagner group who did not take part in the rebellion, would not be prosecuted. He will be offered the contract. Ministry of Defence.
Putin vowed to punish those behind the armed rebellion led by his one-time protégé, whose forces seized a key military facility in southern Russia before advancing on the capital. In a televised address to the nation, Putin called the rebellion ‘treason’ and ‘treason’. Peskov said that Putin’s ‘highest goal’ in allowing Prigozhin and his army to go free was to “avoid bloodshed and internal conflict with unpredictable consequences”.
Moscow had prepared for the arrival of Wagner’s forces by building outposts with armored vehicles and troops on the southern edge of the city. Red Square was closed and the mayor urged motorists to stay off certain streets. But after the deal was done, Prigozhin announced that while his men were only 200 kilometers (120 mi) from Moscow, he had decided to retreat to avoid ‘shedding Russian blood’. His troops were ordered back to their field camps in Ukraine, where they are fighting alongside Russian regular troops.
Prigozhin has sought to remove Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who has long been criticized for his handling of the war in Ukraine. On Friday, he accused forces under Shoigu’s command of attacking the Wagner camps and killing “a large number of our comrades”. The Defense Ministry has denied this. Prigozhin did not say whether the Kremlin had responded to his demand. Peskov said that the issue could not be discussed during the talks, which were held by the President of Belarus, and is the ‘exclusive prerogative of the commander in chief’.
Had Putin agreed to remove Shoigu, it could have been politically damaging for the president, as he has branded Prigozhin a backstabbing traitor. Britain’s Defense Ministry said that early Saturday, Prigozhin’s private army appeared to be controlling the military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, a city 660 miles (more than 1,000 kilometers) south of Moscow, which runs Russian operations in Ukraine.
Video from one night in the city posted on Russian messaging app Channels showed people cheering on Wagner soldiers as they left Rostov-on-Don. Prigozhin was seen boarding a vehicle and was greeted by people, and when he rolled down the window, some ran to shake his hand. Wagner’s troops and equipment were also in the Lipetsk province, about 360 kilometers (225 mi) south of Moscow.
Authorities declared an ‘anti-terrorist regime’ in and around Moscow, beefing up security and restricting some movement. On the southern outskirts, soldiers built outposts, arranged sandbags and set up machine guns. Crews dug up parts of the highways to slow the march. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin warned that traffic could be restricted in parts of the capital and declared Monday a non-working day for most residents.
The dramatic development came just 16 months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II, killing thousands, displacing millions and reducing cities to rubble. given. Ukrainians hoped that the Russian internecine fighting would create opportunities for its forces to retake territory seized by Russian forces.
Ben Barry, senior fellow on land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that even with an agreement, Putin’s position would probably have been weakened and ‘these developments would be too comfortable for the Ukrainian government and military.’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Saturday, shortly before Prigozhin announced the retreat, that the march exposed weakness in the Kremlin and “showed all Russian bandits, mercenaries, oligarchs” that Russian cities and possibly arsenals Easy to capture.
Speaking in Russian in his daily video address, Zelensky said the “man from the Kremlin” was “very scared”. He reiterated his call for the West to supply Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets and ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles. Prigozhin had earlier vowed that his fighters, who he numbered around 25,000, would not surrender because ‘we do not want the country to live in corruption, deception and bureaucracy.’
“With regard to the betrayal of the motherland, the president was deeply mistaken. We are patriots of our motherland,” he said in an audio message on his Telegram channel. He posted his video at the military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don and claimed that his forces had taken control of the airfield and other military facilities in the city without any casualties or ‘a single gunshot’.
The short-lived uprising comes as Russia is “fighting the toughest battle for its future”, Putin said, with the West imposing sanctions on Moscow and arming Ukraine. Putin said, “The entire military, economic and information machinery of the West has been turned against us.” State-controlled TV networks led their news broadcasts with Putin’s statement and reported the tense situation in Rostov-on-Don. The broadcasters also aired statements from top Russian officials and lawmakers expressing support for Putin, condemning Prigozhin and urging him to step down.
Chechnya’s powerful leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who has in the past sided with Prigozhin in his criticism of Russia’s military, also expressed support for Putin’s ‘every word’. “The rebellion needs to be suppressed,” Kadyrov said. Wagner troops have played an important role in the Ukraine War, having captured the eastern city of Bakhmut, an area where the bloodiest and longest fighting took place. But Prigozhin has criticized military officers, accusing them of inefficiency and depriving his troops of war material.
Declaring a rebellion, Prigozhin accused the Russian military of attacking the Wagner camps in Ukraine with rockets, helicopter gunships, and artillery. They alleged that the Chief of the General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov, ordered the attacks after a meeting with Shoigu, in which he decided to destroy the military contractor. The Defense Ministry has denied an attack on the camps.
Prigozhin, 62, a former convict, has long had ties to Putin and won a lucrative Kremlin catering contract, earning him the nickname ‘Putin’s chef’. He gained attention in the US when he and a dozen other Russian nationals were accused of running a covert social media campaign aimed at sowing discord ahead of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election victory. Wagner has sent military contractors to Libya, Syria, several African countries, and eventually Ukraine.
It appeared that the uprising would further hinder Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine, as Kiev’s forces probed Russian defenses in the early stages of a counter-offensive.