On the evening of June 23, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said that the Russian regular army, led by Defense Minister Shoigu, tried to carry out an operation to destroy the Wagner fighters. Because of this, 25,000 mercenaries allegedly set out to “restore justice” – to commit a mutiny against the military leadership of the Russian Federation.
In less than a day, the Wagner fighters almost reached Moscow. On the way, Russian militants took control of Rostov-on-Don and Voronezh’s military facilities and shot down three helicopters. 13-20 Russian soldiers died at the hands of mercenaries. In an emergency address, dictator Putin said they are trying to “organize a mutiny” in the Russian Federation. Meanwhile, he made an emergency escape from Moscow to Valdai – to a residence in Novgorod Oblast, Ukrainian intelligence reported.
Having yet to reach 200 km to Moscow, Wagner fighters turned their columns and retreated. This allegedly happened after Prigozhin’s conversation with the self-proclaimed president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. Despite the promise of Putin’s press secretary Peskov, the Wagner Group leader remains under investigation in the case of sedition in Russia.
After the “mutiny” of the mercenaries, the world saw that the masters of Russia do not control anything in the territory full of weapons, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. However, the president added that Ukraine could protect Europe from any Russian forces, and it doesn’t matter who commands them.
“Those who said Russia was too strong to lose: look now. Time to abandon false neutrality and fear of escalation..; forget about friendship or business with Russia,” the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, said.
At the same time, Oleksii Danilov, Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, is sure that due to the events with Wagner private military company, the destruction of Russia is inevitable, and Prigozhin’s “rebellion” is the first stage of the dismantling of Putin’s system.
“Everything that can go wrong in Russia will go wrong, and the “Prigozhin case” can/has started processes with unpredictable consequences. The countdown has started,” Danilov emphasized.
Cover: Reuters
