Mercenary chief ’s feud with Russian brass now rebellion
The owner of the Wagner private military contractor made his most direct challenge to the Kremlin yet on Friday, calling for an armed rebellion aimed at ousting Russia’s defense minister. The security services reacted immediately by opening a criminal investigation into Yevgeny Prigozhin and calling for his arrest.
In a sign of how seriously the Kremlin was taking the threat, security was heightened in Moscow and in Rostov-on-don, which is home to the Russian military headquarters for the southern region and also oversees the fighting in Ukraine.
Prigozhin claimed Saturday that his forces had reached Rostov, saying they faced no resistance from young conscripts at checkpoints and adding that his forces “aren’t fighting against children.”
“But we will destroy anyone who stands in our way,” he said. “We are moving forward and will go until the end.”
He claimed that the chief of the General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, scrambled warplanes to strike Wagner’s convoys, which were driving alongside ordinary vehicles.
Prigozhin said Wagner field camps in Ukraine were struck by rockets, helicopter gunships and artillery fire on orders from Gerasimov following a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, at which they decided to destroy Wagner.
Prigozhin said his troops would punish Shoigu in an armed rebellion and urged the army not to offer resistance.
“This is not a military coup, but a march of justice,” Prigozhin declared.
The National Antiterrorism Committee, which is part of the Federal Security Services, or FSB, said he would be investigated on charges of calling for an armed rebellion. The FSB urged Wagner’s contract soldiers to arrest Prigozhin and refuse to follow his “criminal and treacherous orders.”
Russia’s chief prosecutor said the armed rebellion charge carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
Wagner’s forces have played a crucial role in Russia’s war in Ukraine, succeeding in taking the city where the bloodiest and longest battles have taken place, Bakhmut. Prigozhin has frequently criticized Russia’s military brass, accusing it of incompetence and of starving his troops of weapons and ammunition, but with his accusations and calls for armed rebellion Friday, he appeared to go a step too far.
“Today they carried out a rocket strike on our rear camps, and a huge number of our comrades got killed,” he said. The Defense Ministry denied attacking the Wagner camps.
Prigozhin claimed that Shoigu went to the Russian military headquarters in Rostov-on-don personally to direct the strike and then “cowardly” fled.
Col. Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of the Russian group of forces fighting in Ukraine, urged the Wagner forces to stop any move against the army, saying it would play into the hands of Russia’s enemies, who are “waiting to see the exacerbation of our domestic political situation.”