Wagner chief vows to ‘go to the end’ to oust Moscow top brass, says forces rebelling

The head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner vowed Saturday to take all necessary steps to topple the country’s military leadership in Moscow, saying his forces would “destroy everything” in their way.

“We are going onwards and we will go to the end,” Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a new audio message after vowing to sideline Russia’s military leadership. He said his forces had entered the southern Russian region of Rostov but did not provide any proof and AFP could not independently verify his claims.

There was also no confirmation of that yet on Russian social networks. Videos showed heavy trucks blocking highways leading to the city, long convoys of National Guard trucks were seen on a road outside Rostov and armored vehicles were roaming the streets.

“We will destroy everything that stands in our way,” Prigozhin warned in one of the recordings.

Prigozhin, who has for months been mired in a feud with the defense ministry, on Friday accused Moscow of targeting his forces with deadly missile strikes and vowed to retaliate.

He urged Russians to join his forces and punish Moscow’s military leadership in the most audacious challenge to President Vladimir Putin since the start of the offensive in Ukraine last year.

File: Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin attends the funeral of Dmitry Menshikov, a fighter of the Wagner group who died during a special operation in Ukraine, at the Beloostrovskoye cemetery outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on Dec. 24, 2022 (AP Photo, File)

Prigozhin claimed early Saturday that his forces had crossed from Ukraine and had reached Rostov, saying they faced no resistance from young conscripts at checkpoints and that his forces “aren’t fighting against children.”

“But we will destroy anyone who stands in our way,” he said in one of a series of angry video and audio recordings posted on social media beginning late Friday.

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 also said his forces shot down a Russian military helicopter that fired on a civilian convoy, but there was no independent confirmation.

rigozhin 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.

The Wagner 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. But Prigozhin has increasingly criticized Russia’s military brass, accusing it of incompetence and of starving his troops of weapons and ammunition.

Prigozhin, who said he had 25,000 troops under his command, said late Friday 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 Anti-Terrorism Committee, which is part of the Federal Security Services, or FSB, has charged him with calling for an armed rebellion, which carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

In this handout photo taken from video released by Prigozhin Press Service on Friday, March 3, 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner Group military company, addresses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asking him to withdraw the remaining Ukrainian forces from Bakhmut to save their lives, at an unspecified location in Ukraine. Prigozhin’s criticism of the top military brass is in stark contrast with more than two decades of rigidly controlled rule by President Vladimir Putin without any sign of infighting among his top lieutenants. (Prigozhin Press Service via AP, File)

The FSB urged Wagner’s contract soldiers to arrest Prigozhin and refuse to follow his “criminal and treacherous orders.” It called his statements a “stab in the back to Russian troops” and said they amounted to fomenting an armed conflict in Russia.

President Vladimir Putin has been informed about the situation and “all the necessary measures were being taken,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Heavy military trucks and armored vehicles were seen in several parts of central Moscow early Saturday, and soldiers toting assault rifles were deployed outside the main building of the Defense Ministry. The area around the presidential administration near Red Square was blocked, snarling traffic.

But even amid the heightened military presence, downtown bars and restaurants were filled with customers. At one club near the headquarters of the FSB, people were dancing in the street near the entrance.

Prigozhin, whose feud with the Defense Ministry dates back years, had refused to comply with a requirement that military contractors sign contracts with the ministry before July 1. In a statement late Friday, he said he was ready to find a compromise but “they have treacherously cheated us.”

“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 personally to direct the strike and then “cowardly” fled.

“This scum will be stopped,” he said of Shoigu.

“The evil embodied by the country’s military leadership must be stopped,” he shouted, urging the army not to offer any resistance to Wagner as it moves to “restore justice.”

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.”

Tatiana Stanovaya, a political analyst, predicted this would be the end of Prigozhin.

Head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claims the complete capture of east Ukraine’s Bakhmut, in a video published to Telegram on May 20, 2023. (Screenshot)

“Now that the state has actively engaged, there’s no turning back,” she tweeted. “The termination of Prigozhin and Wagner is imminent. The only possibility now is absolute obliteration, with the degree of resistance from the Wagner group being the only variable. Surovikin was dispatched to convince them to surrender. Confrontation seems totally futile.”

Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alexeyev, a top military officer, denounced Prigozhin’s move as “madness” that threatened to unleash a civil war.

“It’s a stab in the back to the country and the president,” he said. “It’s impossible to imagine a stronger blow to the image of Russia and its armed forces. Such a provocation could only be staged by enemies of Russia.”

The Defense Ministry said in a statement that Ukraine’s military was concentrating troops to launch an attack around Bakhmut to take advantage of “Prigozhin’s provocation.” It said Russian artillery and warplanes were firing on Ukrainian forces as they prepared to start an offensive in the area.

In Washington, a spokesman for the National Security Council, Adam Hodge, said: “We are monitoring the situation and will be consulting with allies and partners on these developments.”

In other developments in the Ukraine war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on other countries to heed warnings that Russia may be planning to attack an occupied nuclear power plant to cause a radiation disaster.

Members of his government briefed international representatives on the possible threat to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, whose six reactors have been shut down for months. Zelensky said he expected other nations to “give appropriate signals and exert pressure” on Moscow.

The Kremlin’s spokesman has denied the threat to the plant is coming from Russian forces.