Russia coup: Wagner leader claims mercenaries took Russian city without firing a shot
Chris Irvine Joel Gehrke
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Rebel Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, once nicknamed Vladimir Putin’s chef, claimed on Saturday morning that his troops entered the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, 660 miles south of Moscow, without firing a single shot.
In a new audio statement released Saturday, Prigozhin, who says his troops are not engaged in a coup but rather a “march of justice”, declared: “We didn’t touch a single conscript, we didn’t kill a single person on our way.”
He claimed the Russian air force targeted his troops, but they were able to seize the military headquarters in Rostov “without a single gunshot.” His claims could not be independently verified.
RUSSIA COUP: VLADIMIR PUTIN SLAMS ‘BETRAYAL’ BY WAGNER MERCENARIES
Prigozhin’s latest comments come as Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to defend Russia against the rebellion, calling the betrayal a “stab in the back.”
In his address, Putin called the uprising by Prigozhin, whom he did not mention by name, a “betrayal” and “treason.”
“All those who prepared the rebellion will suffer inevitable punishment,” Putin said. “The armed forces and other government agencies have received the necessary orders.”
On Friday night Russian military and intelligence officials issued a series of desperate appeals for Wagner Group fighters not to attack.
Shortly after Putin’s speech, multiple flight trackers on social media claimed the Russian president’s plane had taken off from Moscow and was headed to St. Petersburg.
“Prigozhin’s statements and actions effectively constitute calls for an armed civil conflict on Russian territory and a stab in the back of Russian servicemen,” the Russian Federal Security Service said Friday. “We call on the PMC fighter not to commit irreparable mistakes, to stop any force actions against the Russian people, and not to comply with criminal and traitorous orders of Prigozhin, and to take measures on his apprehension.”
That appeal was just one of several public statements that put Russian senior leaders in the position of trying to stave off a violent confrontation with the man once known as “Putin’s chef,” a reference to Prigozhin’s restaurant businesses. Other prominent military leaders emphasized their concern that the internal crisis would undermine Russian attempts to repel the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The internal crisis erupted hours after Prigozhin released an extensive audio statement declaring that Russia started the war in Ukraine under false pretexts on behalf of greedy oligarchs eager to “plunder” Ukraine — first the Donbas region, where the war began in 2014, and more recently the whole country.
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Prigozhin has vowed to take revenge for alleged “missile strikes at our rear camps” by regular Russian forces, in a seeming eruption of his long-running dispute with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The warlord made a point of stipulating that “presidential authority” and Russia’s internal security services “will continue operating as before,” but the outburst drew an ominous statement from the Kremlin.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press