Moscow: The Wagner paramilitary group halted its march on Moscow on Saturday, after Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko brokered a deal between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the rebels, averting an armed confrontation that threatened to plunge the country into civil war.
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. Earlier, Moscow deployed soldiers in preparation for their arrival and told residents to avoid going out.
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.
In a sign of the gravity of the situation earlier in the day, Putin addressed 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.
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 racing in convoy through the country, transporting tanks and armoured trucks and smashing through barricades before moving north toward Moscow with little resistance, shocking the country and the world.
“In 24 hours we got to within 200 km of Moscow. In this time we did not spill a single drop of our fighters’ blood,” Prigozhin, dressed in full combat uniform at an undisclosed location, said in a video.
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.
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.”
In a televised address from the Kremlin, Putin said the Wagner rebellion put Russia’s very existence under threat.
“We are fighting for the lives and security of our people, for our sovereignty and independence, for the right to remain Russia, a state with a thousand-year history,” Putin said, vowing punishment for those who “prepared an armed insurrection”.
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.”
Impact On Ukraine War
The insurrection risked leaving Russia’s invasion force in Ukraine in disarray, just as Kyiv is launching its strongest counteroffensive since the war began in February last year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the Wagner revolt, which sparked a flurry of high-level calls between Western leaders, exposed turmoil in Russia.
Western capitals said they were closely following the situation. U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with the leaders of France, Germany and Britain, while Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to G7 counterparts.
The top U.S. military officer, Army General Mark Milley, cancelled a scheduled trip to the Middle East because of the developments.
“This represents the most significant challenge to the Russian state in recent times,” Britain’s defence ministry said earlier on Saturday as Prigozhin’s fighters bore down on Moscow.
‘Russophobic goals’, Russia’s warning to the West
Earlier the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday that any attempts by Western nations to “use the domestic Russian situation to achieve their Russophobic goals,” will prove futile.
“The attempted armed rebellion that took place in our country has sparked a sharp rejection in Russian society, which resolutely supports the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin,” the ministry statement read.
“The adventuristic aspirations of the conspirators, in fact, are aimed at destabilizing the situation in Russia [and] destroying our unity,” the statement continued. “Thus, the rebellion plays into the hands of Russia’s external enemies.”
“We warn Western countries against any hint of possible use of the domestic Russian situation to achieve their Russophobic goals. Such attempts are futile and will not find a response either in Russia or among sane political forces abroad,” the ministry concluded.
The fighters led by Prigozhin, a former convict, include thousands of ex-prisoners recruited from Russian jails.
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.
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