Russia Wagner Group: The Wagner chief vowed to take all necessary steps to topple Russia’s military.
Russia accused the head of the powerful mercenary group Wagner of mounting an armed uprising and ordered his arrest as the growing animosity between rival Kremlin camps over the war in Ukraine spilled into open conflict.
The Wagner chief 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.
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Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin appeared to suggest he had sent an armed convoy on a 1,200-km (750-mile) charge towards Moscow on Saturday in an unlikely attempt to topple the military leadership.
Russian local officials said a military convoy was on the main motorway linking the southern part of European Russia, bordering Ukraine, with Moscow, and warned residents to avoid it.
The head of Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin announced Saturday that he was inside the army HQ in southern Russia’s Rostov-on-Don and that his fighters control the city’s military sites, including an aerodrome, after vowing to bring down Moscow’s top brass.
“We are inside the (army) headquarters, it is 7:30 am (0430 GMT),” Prigozhin said in a video on Telegram. “Military sites in Rostov, including an aerodrome, are under control,” he added.
“All of us are ready to die. All 25,000, and then another 25,000,” Yevgeny Prigozhin, 62, said in an audio message, after earlier accusing the Russian top brass of launching strikes against his men.