Details of 36 Hours of Wagner’s Armed Forces Mutiny in Russia
In just 36 hours, an armed rebellion led by the head of the “Wagner” private military group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, broke out, ending with an agreement after mediation by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, stipulating the departure of Prigozhin, who tried to overthrow the Russian military leadership to Belarus.
Prior to the agreement, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to crush an “armed rebellion” after Wagner’s forces captured Rostov and Voronezh and a 5,000-man force marched toward Moscow.
Prior to the development of events, Prigozhin’s statements against the Russian military leadership, specifically against Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, were harsh and amounted to insults, against the background of providing his group with ammunition and weapons.
Here is a timeline of the events that unfolded over the past 24 hours.
Wagner’s forces in Rostov (Reuters)
Friday: starting day
On Friday, Prigozhin posted a video escalating his disagreement with Russia’s top military brass, and for the first time rejecting Moscow’s basic justification for the special military operation in Ukraine.
Prigozhin accused Russian forces of bombing Wagner’s forces, which caused the deaths of thousands of his men, and vowed to respond. against the Russian army.
For its part, Russia’s Federal Security Service responded by opening a criminal case against Prigozhin, saying he had called for “armed rebellion”.
The deputy commander of the Russian campaign in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovkin, urged the Wagner Group to stop opposing the military leadership and return to its bases.
The pace of events accelerated
On Saturday, Prigozhin said his men had crossed the border from Ukraine into Russia and were ready to go “to great lengths” in their opposition to the Russian military. Wagner fighters entered the southern Russian city of Rostov, Prigozhin said in an audio recording posted to Telegram.
The White House said that it is monitoring the situation between Russia and the Wagner Group, and will consult with allies and partners on developments. As for the Russian Prosecutor General, Igor Krasnov, he officially informed Putin of the criminal case against Prigozhin on charges of armed rebellion.
And the governor of the Rostov region, bordering Ukraine in southern Russia, advised the population to remain calm and stay in their homes, as it became clear that Wagner’s forces had taken control of the city of Rostov.
As for the Russian Ministry of Defense, it issued a statement appealing to the Wagner fighters to abandon their leader, saying that they were “deceived and drawn into a criminal adventure.” A Russian security source told Reuters that the Wagner fighters took control of all military facilities in the city of Voronezh, about 500 kilometers south of Moscow.
President Putin delivered a televised speech pledging to crush the “armed rebellion” and accusing Prigozhin of “betrayal” and of “stab in the back” to Russia.
For his part, Prigozhin refused to accuse Putin and his group of treason, and a statement attributed to Wagner’s forces stated that “Russia will have a new president.”
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, an ally of Putin, said his forces were ready to help put down Prigozhin’s rebellion and use harsh methods if necessary.
European governments including Britain, France, Germany and Italy issued statements saying they were closely monitoring developments in Russia, as Russian military helicopters opened fire on a convoy of Wagner rebels who had cut more than halfway towards Moscow in a lightning advance after capturing Rostov overnight.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that “Russia’s weakness is clear” and that the longer Moscow keeps its forces and mercenaries in Ukraine for a longer period, the more chaos it will invite to retreat.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko reached out to the Russian president, offering mediation to end the armed rebellion, which Prigozhin accepted and ordered his fighters to return to their previous bases in Lugansk to avoid bloodshed.
settlement agreement
In the early hours of Sunday, the Kremlin said that Prigozhin would move to Belarus “and the criminal charges against him will be dropped.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov revealed that the Russian president is the guarantor of the settlement agreement brokered by Lukashenko.
And the regional governor of the city of Rostov, Vasily Golubev, announced, via Telegram, that Wagner fighters left the city after they took control of it on Saturday and headed towards their camps.
Russian media reported that all restrictions on the country’s highways had been lifted, and Russia’s TASS news agency said security measures had been kept the same on the Moscow-Tula highway.
