---

Russian Mercenary Chief Calls Off March To Moscow, Will Move To Belarus

(Article text Copyright © 2023 RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036. – rferl.org – June 25, 2023 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/russia-mutiny-prigozhin-putin/32474296.html)

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russian mercenary group Wagner, told his forces to immediately halt their advance on Moscow and return to their camps as fears of a possible violent power struggle gripped the country.

"We are turning our columns around and going back to the field camps according to our plan," Prigozhin said in a short, fiery audio message posted to Telegram on June 24.

In his statement, Prigozhin boasted that his troops – which he claimed numbered 25,000 – had come within 200 kilometers of Moscow without spilling any blood, a possible hint to the Kremlin of his support within elements of the nation's security structures.

The Kremlin later confirmed that it had struck a deal with Prigozhin to end the insurrection, saying the mercenary leader will move to Belarus and have all charges dropped against him while his Wagner group will now come under the direct control of the Russian military.

Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka helped mediate the deal, the Kremlin said.

The insurrection heralded the most serious challenge to President Vladimir Putin's more than two-decade hold on power, and though it appears to be over for now, it has left the authoritarian Russian leader weakened and vulnerable, experts say.

"The fact that this was moderated by Lukashenka strikes me as embarrassing in the extreme," Sam Greene, a Russia expert at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said in a tweet. "This whole episode may have punctured the air of inevitability that has kept him aloft for the past 23 years."

In a sign of the gravity of the situation earlier in the day, Putin was forced to address the nation, saying in televised remarks that he would do "everything to protect the country. He also called the leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkey to inform them of the situation.

The armed insurrection, unprecedented in post-Soviet Russia, put other nations on alert, with U.S. President Joe Biden contacting his counterparts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

WATCH: RFE/RL reporters captured events in Voronezh and Rostov-on-Don amid an armed rebellion by the Wagner mercenary group that rocked Russia on June 24. The group launched a military column toward Moscow before its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced he was calling it off to "avoid bloodshed."

Putin must now contend with the ramifications of the mutiny as Ukraine pushes ahead with its large-scale counteroffensive, a crucial endeavor that could shape the course of the conflict, including further opening the spigot of lethal Western military aid.

Prigozhin's forces swept into Rostov-on-Don in Russia's south in the early morning hours of June 24 where they easily seized key infrastructure, before moving north toward Moscow with little resistance, shocking the country and the world.

Putin called his actions a "mutiny" and said he would take "decisive action" to stabilize the situation. The Russian military reportedly fired on the Wagner forces at one point as they made their way along the highway toward Moscow, though RFE/RL could not confirm such an incident.

Top Russian officials and personalities, including former President Dmitry Medvedev, Russian Orthodox Church head Patriarch Kirill, and Russian State Duma head Vyacheslav Volodin echoed Putin's call for Russian citizens to rally and for Wagner troops to halt the insurrection.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close Putin ally who has headed the republic in Russia's North Caucasus region since 2007, said he was going to deploy Chechen troops to "preserve Russia's unity and protect its statehood."

'Personal Ambition'

The Russian leader said that Prigozhin had "betrayed" his country out of "personal ambition."

Prigozhin responded promptly to Putin's allegations of betrayal, saying in an audio message that the Russian president was "deeply mistaken" and that he and his forces "are patriots of the motherland."

In his address to the nation, Putin vowed to punish all "traitors" involved in the Wagner action, which he said was a "stab in the back" in the face of what he characterized as a Western threat to Russian sovereignty.

However, he backtracked on that tough line amid the deal with Prigozhin, with the Kremlin confirming that none of the Wagner forces taking part in the insurrection would be prosecuted.

Prigozhin began his march toward Moscow on June 23 after accusing the Russian Defense Ministry of launching rocket attacks on the rear camps of his forces in Ukraine using artillery and attack helicopters that allegedly killed many of his men. The Kremlin called the mercenary leader's accusation false.

Prigozhin's insurrection came in the wake of months of intense public fighting with Russia's military leadership over its war strategy in Ukraine and ammunition supplies.

Over the spring, the Wagner leader repeatedly accused Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov of intentionally holding back supplies of ammunition to his troops in Bakhmut, the site of the war's bloodiest battle.

Semon Pegov, a pro-Russia military blogger, said in an interview with Prigozhin on April 29 that there was speculation the Russian military was withholding ammunition from Wagner for fear the mercenary leader would use it to storm Moscow and take power.

Prigozhin responded that it was an "interesting idea" but claimed he hadn't considered it.

However, just a month later, after his troops took Bakhmut in the first Russian victory of the war in about 10 months, Prigozhin toured several Russian regions, giving interviews to local media in what some experts said was a clear sign of his political ambition.

Meanwhile, Putin appeared to be siding with the Russian Defense Ministry in its spat with Prigozhin, appearing alongside Shoigu in a sign of support.

The Russian Defense Ministry soon moved to take direct control of Wagner in what some experts said was a Kremlin attempt to sideline Prigozhin.

In his audio statement announcing his troops' pullback, Prigozhin claimed the Kremlin had been seeking to disband his Wagner group.

Aleksandar Djokic, a political analyst, said in a tweet that Prigozhin had probably "caught wind" of the fact that he had lost Putin's favor and carried out the mutiny to prove his worth.

He said it appeared Prigozhin had won the standoff, showing Putin "he's too dangerous."

While the insurrection sent shivers down the spines of Muscovites, it was welcomed in Kyiv.

In a Telegram message, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the events demonstrated "Russia's weakness" and warned that the longer Russian troops are on his country's soil, "the more chaos, pain, and problems" Russia will suffer.

Mykhaylo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Prigozhin's operation clearly exposed the simmering feud among Russia's leadership that won't end anytime soon.

"The split between the elites is too obvious," he said, adding the infighting in Russia "is just beginning."

With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service, Current Time, AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters, Interfax, and TASS.

 

[please be sure to consider clicking the support button, to support this web project and related efforts]

Key Words: Russia, Russian Military, Mutiny, Prigozhin, Wagner Group, Russo-Ukrainian War