Russia accuses mercenary chief of armed mutiny after he vows to punish
top brass
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[June 24, 2023]
By Andrew Osborn and Kevin Liffey
LONDON (Reuters) - Russia accused mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin of
armed mutiny on Friday after he alleged, without providing evidence,
that the military leadership had killed a huge number of his fighters in
an air strike and vowed to punish them.
The standoff, many of whose details remained unclear, looked like the
biggest domestic crisis President Vladimir Putin has faced since he
ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine - something he called a
"special military operation" - in February last year.
As the standoff between Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner mercenary
force, and the defence ministry appeared to come to a head, the ministry
issued a statement saying Prigozhin's accusations were "not true and are
an informational provocation".
Prigozhin said his actions were not a military coup. But in a frenzied
series of audio messages, in which the sound of his voice sometimes
varied and could not be independently verified, he appeared to suggest
that 25,000 fighters were en route to oust the leaders of the defence
establishment in Moscow.
He said: "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 are going to figure out why chaos is
happening in the country," 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 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 "round 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 fact calls for the start of an armed
civil conflict on Russian territory and his actions are a 'stab in the
back' of Russian servicemen fighting pro-fascist Ukrainian forces," the
FSB said.
"We urge the ... fighters not to make irreparable mistakes, to stop any
forcible actions against the Russian people, not to carry out the
criminal and traitorous orders of Prigozhin, to take measures to detain
him."
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Founder of Wagner private mercenary
group Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves a cemetery before the funeral of
Russian military blogger Maxim Fomin widely known by the name of
Vladlen Tatarsky, who was recently killed in a bomb attack in a St
Petersburg cafe, in Moscow, Russia, April 8, 2023. REUTERS/Yulia
Morozova/File Photo
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 right to appoint the top leadership of
the armed forces, and you are trying 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 just waiting for our internal
political situation to deteriorate".
"Before it is too late ... you must submit to the will and order of
the people's president of the Russian Federation. Stop the columns
and return them to their permanent bases," he said.
Prigozhin, whose men spearheaded the capture of the Ukrainian city
of Bakhmut last month, has for months been openly accusing Defence
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 attack was launched on the camps
of PMC (Private Military Company) Wagner. Many victims. According to
eyewitnesses, the strike was delivered from the rear, that is, it
was delivered by the military of the Russian Ministry of Defence."
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 war was needed ... so that Shoigu could become a marshal ... so
that he could get a second 'Hero' [of Russia] medal," Prigozhin said
in a video clip. "The war wasn't needed to demilitarise 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 looked down on the army for a long time ... Of course they
support him, he is their leader," he said.
"They won't hesitate (to fight the army), if anyone gets in their
way."
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Andrew Osborn and Kevin Liffey;
Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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