Fears of an attempted coup in Russia were growing on Saturday as troops from the Wagner militia were marching on the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, led by the furious mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin set on revenge for Moscow killing some of his men.

Prigozhin issued a new message at about 2am on Saturday, Moscow time (2300 GMT), saying his forces had crossed the border from Ukraine, and were in Rostov.

Residents have been told to stay in their homes by government officials, but some were seen out observing what was happening, even live-streaming the action on their cell phones.

Prigozhin, who was once a confidant of Vladimir Putin before declaring war on Moscow's military leadership, claimed his forces marched on the city 'unopposed'.

Footage shared on social media showed troops outside the Southern Military Headquarters - which plays a crucial role in managing the Ukraine war - while more were seen less than half a mile encircling the Rostov office of the Interior Ministry.

Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute who specializes in Russian defense, said: 'The Telegram channel says there are soldiers in the building and there are up to 300 Wagner fighters in Rostov.'

Alexander Vindman, a Ukraine expert and former member of the National Security Council, tweeted: 'Those are not Russian National Guard troops. That looks like Wagner troops entering the SMD HQ.'

But some said it was not clear that the forces on the streets were Wagner, and they may have been forces loyal to the Kremlin.

Vladimir Putin's spokesperson said the Russian president had been informed of Prigozhin's claims of a march on Moscow, and that 'necessary measures are being taken.'

Putin has yet to be seen, or publicly comment on the uprising.

Prigozhin claimed to have also shot down a Russian military helicopter in the city - home to the Kremlin's headquarters for the war in Ukraine - which 'opened fire on a civilian column'.

But there was no proof of his claim.

Prigozhin launched his extraordinary action after calling for the ousting of the Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and vowing to punish Russian military leaders - whom he accused of killing 'hundreds' of his mercenaries in an air strike.

The private army boss also claimed the Russian military leaders are lying to Putin and hiding the bodies of a further 2,000 soldiers to conceal losses in Ukraine.

As his Wagner forces closed in on Rostov on Friday night, 1,000 miles from Moscow, Prigozhin said they would take 'all necessary steps' to topple the country's military leadership.

He declared: 'We will destroy anyone who stands in our way... we are moving forward and will go until the end'.

In response, Russian military vehicles were seen on the streets of Moscow.

The FSB security services earlier said they had opened a criminal investigation into Prigozhin and called for his arrest, accusing him of inciting armed insurrection.

While the realities on the ground remain unclear, the episode appears to be the biggest internal military crisis Putin has faced since he ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year.

Mick Mulroy, a retired C.I.A. officer and a former Pentagon official, said that Prigozhin poses 'a serious challenge' to Putin.

'If Mr Prigozhin's threats materialize, the Russian military may have to refocus its efforts from countering the Ukrainian advance to the Russian government's 'self-preservation',' he said.

'Even if this attempted coup fails, it emphatically makes the point that those closest to this war know it was a terrible mistake.'

As Prigozhin said his men were ready to 'go all the way' against Russian military leaders, the state news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying all of the country's security services were reporting to Putin 'round the clock'.

Security was stepped up on Friday night at government buildings, transport facilities and other key locations in Moscow, Russia's TASS news agency reported, citing a source at a security service.

As the standoff between Prigozhin and the defence ministry appeared to come to a head, the ministry issued a statement saying Prigozhin's accusations were 'not true and are an informational provocation'.

Meanwhile, Russian state media had coverage across its front page dedicated to the 'armed rebellion' by the Wagner chief, while Google News was reportedly blocked in the country as the feud intensified.

Prigozhin has said his actions do not amount to a military coup.

But in a frenzied series of audio messages, in which the sound of his voice sometimes varied and could not be independently verified, he appeared to suggest that his 25,000-strong militia was en route to oust the leadership of the defence ministry in Moscow.

Prigozhin said: 'Those who destroyed our lads, who destroyed the lives of many tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, will be punished. I ask that no one offer resistance...

'There are 25,000 of us and we are going to figure out why chaos is happening in the country,' he said, promising to tackle any checkpoints or air forces that got in Wagner's way.

'We will consider anyone who tries to resist a threat and quickly destroy them,' he said.

Earlier on Friday, Prigozhin had appeared to cross a new line in his increasingly vitriolic feud with the ministry, saying that the Kremlin's rationale for invading Ukraine was based on lies concocted by the army's top brass.

Prigozhin has for months been openly accusing Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia's top general, Valery Gerasimov, of rank incompetence and of denying Wagner ammunition and support.

As his violent rhetoric appears to be escalating towards action, the FSB domestic security service said it had opened a criminal case against him for calling for an armed mutiny, a crime punishable with a jail term of up to 20 years.

'Prigozhin's statements are in fact calls for the start of an armed civil conflict on Russian territory and his actions are a 'stab in the back' of Russian servicemen fighting pro-fascist Ukrainian forces,' the FSB said.

'We urge the ... fighters not to make irreparable mistakes, to stop any forcible actions against the Russian people, not to carry out the criminal and traitorous orders of Prigozhin, to take measures to detain him.'

The Kremlin said Putin had been informed and that 'necessary measures are being taken'.

It is still unclear the full extent of the situation in Russia amid claims and counter claims from both the Russian military command and Wagner PMC.

rmy Lieutenant-General Vladimir Alekseyev issued a video appeal in which he asked Prigozhin to reconsider his actions.

'Only the president has the right to appoint the top leadership of the armed forces, and you are trying to encroach on his authority,' he said.

General Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russian forces in Ukraine whom Prigozhin has praised in the past, in a separate video urged Wagner to 'stop'.

'The enemy is just waiting for our internal political situation to deteriorate,' said Surovikin.

'Before it is too late, and it must be done, you must submit to the will and order of the people's president of the Russian Federation.

'Stop the columns and return them to their permanent bases,' he said.



Prigozhin, a one-time Putin ally, in recent months has carried out an increasingly bitter feud with Moscow.

Wagner led Russia's capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut last month, Russia's biggest victory in 10 months, and Prigozhin has used its battlefield success to criticise the leadership of the defense ministry with seeming impunity - until now.

The defence ministry has - until now - largely ignored his criticism, at least in public.

An unverified video posted on a Telegram channel close to Wagner showed the purported scene of an air strike against Wagner forces.

It showed a forest where small fires were burning and trees appeared to have been broken by force. There appeared to be one body, but no more direct evidence of any attack.

It carried the caption: 'A missile attack was launched on the camps of PMC (Private Military Company) Wagner. Many victims. According to eyewitnesses, the strike was delivered from the rear, that is, it was delivered by the military of the Russian Ministry of Defence.'

On Friday he for the first time he dismissed Putin's core justifications for invading Ukraine on February 24 last year.

'The war was needed ... so that Shoigu could become a marshal ... so that he could get a second 'Hero' [of Russia] medal,' Prigozhin said in a video clip.

'The war wasn't needed to demilitarise or denazify Ukraine.'

Marat Gabidullin, a former Wagner commander who moved to France when Russia invaded Ukraine, told Reuters that Wagner's fighters were likely to stand with Prigozhin.

'We have looked down on the army for a long time ... Of course they support him, he is their leader,' he said.

'They won't hesitate (to fight the army), if anyone gets in their way.'

On the frontlines of Ukraine, the Kremlin that Kyiv was taking advantage of infighting between the Wagner mercenary group and the Russian military to ready an assault near the east Ukraine hotspot of Bakhmut.

'Taking advantage of (Yevgeny) Prigozhin's provocation to disorganize the situation, the Kyiv regime near the Bakhmut front is concentrating units... for offensive actions,' the Russian defence ministry said in a statement carried by news agencies....

The plane belonging to Russian President Vladimir Putin departed from Moscow to St. Petersburg early Saturday as the Kremlin attempts to quiet an “armed rebellion” from Wagner mercenaries threatening to weaken the country’s offensive in the Ukrainian war.

The departure comes just hours after mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin led his troops out of Ukraine and into a key city south of Moscow, marking the biggest threat to Putin’s leadership in over two decades in power. Putin responded to the move on Friday, calling the uprising "a stab in the back.”

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky responded to the internal rebellion on Saturday, criticizing the "stupidity” of Russia’s government and claiming its “weakness” has been exposed by the uprising.

The revolt comes after Prigozhin accused the Russian military of attacking his Wagner military forces, vowing to retaliate against the Kremlin. In a speech to supporters on Friday, Putin called the uprising 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."

However, Prigozhin has described himself as a patriot.

"Regarding the betrayal of the motherland, the president was deeply mistaken,” he said in an audio message on his Telegram channel. “We are patriots of our homeland.”

The Wagner forces have played a key role in the Russian offensive of the Ukrainian war by capturing the eastern city of Bakhmut, where the bloodiest and longest battles have taken place. But Prigozhin has increasingly criticized the military brass, accusing it of incompetence and of starving his troops of munitions.

The world was captivated this weekend as Russian mercenaries exited Ukraine and started marching back into Russia. The group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin—head of the paramilitary outfit the Wagner Group—took control of the southern Russia city of Rostov-on-Don by early Saturday. The fighters then went on to take control of Voronezh, between Rostov-on-Don and Moscow, reportedly with the help of troops and commanders in the Russian military.

A significant conflict within Russia seemed imminent—until Pregozhin's forces suddenly retreated.

So…what the heck was this? No one is entirely sure. But the situation in Russia and Ukraine has returned, more or less, to the regrettable status quo.

How It Started

Prigozhin's turn "from 'malcontent Russian paramilitary leader' to 'armed rebel threatening to take Russian territory and oust Russia's top military leadership'"—as Daniel Drezner put it—didn't come out of the blue. "Prigozhin has been lobbing insults at Russia's military leadership for many weeks," as The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum noted on Friday, the day Prigozhin "broke with the official narrative and directly blamed them, and their oligarch friends, for launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022."

On Friday, Prigozhin said that Russia's publicly stated reasons for invading Ukraine were a sham and that the invasion was really premised on "completely different reasons"—namely, greedy Russian elites yearning to get more out of Ukraine's Donbas region, which they had been plundering since 2014.

"The evil brought by the military leadership of the country must be stopped," Prigozhin declared:



Needless to say, this does not mean Prigozhin was motivated by a sudden, pure concern for justice.

Don't Call It a Coup Attempt?

"I think Prigozhin's behavior can best be explained by good-old-fashioned prospect theory," wrote Drezner. "He has been feuding with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, and earlier this month Putin made it clear to Russian military bloggers that the time had come for Wagner Group forces to be put under control of the Russian military. After that negative shock, Progizhin appears to be gambling for resurrection."

"Prigozhin is cynical, brutal, and violent. He and his men are motivated by money and self-interest," suggested Applebaum. "Prigozhin is offering them a psychologically comfortable explanation for their current predicament: They failed to defeat Ukraine because they were betrayed by their leaders."

Nonetheless, the prospect of someone—anyone—sticking it to Putin was exciting for many onlookers.

While not quite a coup attempt, it promised to perhaps change the course of the Russian war in Ukraine—though some experts doubted from the onset that it could amount to much.

"What is going on in #Russia is no military coup," tweeted Oxford professor of government Stathis Kalyvas. "Coups tend to be launched at the center seeking to generate cascades of compliance. This is an armed rebellion launched from a peripheral stronghold. Hard to see how it could succeed short of mass defections in the Russian military."

"This was a mutiny more than a coup or an insurrection," suggested Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London, "but possibly to Prigozhin's surprise and certainly Putin's alarm it almost turned into something more."

How It's Going

And then, by Saturday afternoon, it was all over. Prigozhin and his men retreated. Moscow was unscathed.

"What had started as a mutinous thunder-run to Moscow by the Wagner Group ended up being something more like a Joyride of the Valkyries," commented the Ukraine-based journalist Tim Mak.

Prigozhin issued the following statement:



Prigozhin's explanation for retreat—that he did not want more bloodshed—rings a bit hollow, Freedman suggests:



There was reportedly a deal struck between the Wagner Group and Russian authorities to let Prigozhin and his men avoid prosecution. From the Associated Press:



In the end, writes Freedman, "this great clash between Putin and Prigozhin, on which the future of Russia and so much else depended, ended as an anti-climactic no-score draw, damaging both men."

"It is impossible to know whether Prigozhin's weekend adventure will make him a major player in Russia's future, or award him a death sentence," adds Aris Roussinos at UnHerd. "This dramatic Saturday roadshow simultaneously humiliated Putin, and suddenly established Prigozhin's own position—if only for a day—as the de facto second most powerful man in Russia. His survival will now depend on whether Putin finds the risks embodied in Prigozhin, greater than the potential rewards he promises if only given the opportunity to expand his role."

...The "coup" was staged. The only question is, why would Putin stage such an elaborate deception?

And the answer is politics. The Russian strongman is up for re-election on March 17, 2024. With no end in sight to the Russia-Ukraine war, Putin has to convince the Russians of the need to bear even more sacrifices in order to maintain popular support for the war in Ukraine. Putin achieved this by appealing to two primordial fears of the Russian people: invasion from the West and chaos.

In his address on Saturday, the capstone of this whole charade, Putin asserted that the West was behind Prigozhin mutiny, which he likened to the 1917 revolution. As Putin knows, if you want to scare a Russian, tell them they are going to go through the horror and disorder of the Bolshevik revolution again. These claims became the pretext for Putin to gain more power, not less. He declared a "counter-terrorism operation," effectively marshal law, requiring extreme security measures, including constant monitoring of citizens communications. And he reversed the rule that prohibited people with a criminal record from joining the military, which will enable additional military mobilization.

And the Russian media predictably cheered the dear leader for saving Mother Russia and "chasing away" the traitors.

Of course, what Russians view as strength—Putin was able to squash a major armed mutiny—Western media and Biden's "experts" interpreted as weakness. And this, too, is as Putin wants it. The perception in the West that he is weak and his military is incompetent suggests that the West need not provide so much assistance to Ukraine, a key goal of Putin's.

Putin is also reminding the world that the longer the Ukraine war continues, the greater the chance for unpredictable consequences, like, say, nuclear Armageddon. As Prigozhin's troops rolled up the M4 highway to Moscow, commentators fretted about the chaos and who was in control of Russia's nukes.

There's an entire doctrine in the Russian military science called Reflexive Control, which is designed to trick the enemy by serving him information he is likely to believe because of his pre-existing bias. Team Biden is already there.

Meanwhile, the Wagner Group has used its trip to Moscow to land itself in Belarus, which just received a gift of tactical nuclear weapons from Putin. This points to yet another potential goal of the false flag operation: opening a second front to Ukraine's north while directly threatening NATO's eastern flank with the weapons of Armageddon. This time, Putin is doing it with Russia's most effective fighting force.

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary group who staged a brief rebellion against Vladimir Putin in June, is listed as a passenger on a plane that crashed northwest of Moscow on Wednesday.

Video shared on the Telegram app showed a plane afire on the ground with a partial registration number that aligns with a jet Prigozhin was known to use.

“An investigation of the Embraer plane crash that happened in the Tver Region this evening was initiated,” the Federal Agency for Air Transport of Russia said in a statement, according to the state news agency Tass. “According to the passenger list, [the first and last name of Yevgeny Prigozhin was included in this list.”

Russian media reports that eight bodies have been recovered from the wreckage so far. There were reportedly seven passengers and three crew members aboard the commercial jet.

A Telegram account that’s believed to be close to the Russian leadership suggests that reports of Mr. Prigozhin’s death were “premature,” and that “Yevgeny Prigozhin may have been on a different airplane.”

But the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the plane may have been shot down by the Russian air defenses.



The plane may have been shot down, but there are other possible scenarios that could be true in the Byzantine world of Russia’s politics:

1. As a Russian Telegram channel close to the Kremlin suggested, Prigozhin may not have even been on the plane, although it would certainly be in his interest to make certain Russian dictators believe so. The Wagner Group chief may have needed to disappear for a while. Don’t be surprised if he emerges in a couple of months somewhere in Africa.

2. Putin may be blameless, and Prigozhin was taken out by his own men. Thus be it ever for mercenaries.

3. Given the state of Russian aviation, the aircraft may really have experienced a catastrophic failure unrelated to politics.

The New York Times has been updating its coverage regularly.



We’ll update this story when confirmation of Prigozhin’s fate becomes known.

At this point it's looking like the entire top command of Russian mercenary outfit Wagner Group was aboard the private plane that was downed northwest of Moscow hours ago. Wagner itself is confirming Yvgeny Prigozhin’s death, with Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel Grey Zone calling it a "murder".

"The murder/assassination of Prigozhin will have catastrophic consequences. The people who gave the order do not understand the mood in the army and morale at all. Let this be a lesson to all. You always have to go to the end," the Wagner channel statement reads.

The bodies of Prigozhin and his second-in-command Dmitry Utkin, have reportedly been identified, according to statements which have been quick to come out of Russian media. Russian news agency TASS has also made it official: "Evgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin were on board the crashed Embraer plane, the Federal Air Transport Agency reported."

Russian authorities have said eight bodies have been recovered thus far. FT has summarized the following details of emerging Wagner statements:



The same report cited a Western official to say it was an anti-aircraft missile that struck the private jet:



Alicia Kearns, Chair of the UK's Foreign Affairs Select Committee, has observed in the aftermath, "The speed at which the Russian Govt has confirmed Yevgeny Prigozhin was on a plane that crashed on a flight from Moscow to St Petersburg should tell us everything we need to know."

President Biden (who is apparently already back on vacation) has been briefed this afternoon, and told reporters from Lake Tahoe that he's "not surprised" when asked about Prigozhin's reported death. "I don’t know for fact what happened, but I am not surprised," Biden said according to Bloomberg. He then pointed the finger at the Russian President: "Not much happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind," Biden added.

Suddenly some of the mainstream is calling Prigozhin a "dissident" - a very strange choice of words considering his complicated role in the Ukraine war...

Speculation continues as to precisely what brought the plane down (whether missile or a bomb detonation)...

The internet has exploded with an avalanche breaking reports that Wagner chief Yvgeny Prigozhin’s business jet has crashed over Russia's Tver region, northwest of Moscow.

Unconfirmed reports say anywhere from seven to ten people were on board, all presumed dead - but it was initially unclear if Prigozhin himself was on board at the time. Russian media sources are now confirming that he was on board the downed plane, and is presumed dead.

This has led to immediate speculation that the private plane could have been shot down upon Putin's orders (or people in the military command placed a bomb?... or a sophisticated Western intel op?). Per FT's Moscow correspondent: "Wagner-linked channels say Russian air defense *shot down the plane* – the same private jet Prigozhin regularly uses."

The Kremlin has quickly issued confirmation that the aircraft did indeed belong to the controversial Wagner leader who led a mutiny against the defense ministry June 23-24. Per official news wires out of Russia



...

There are emerging reports that Russia's security services are investigating whether Prigozhin's jet crashed due to a terrorist attack.

This is a good moment to recall Joe Biden's words on Yevgeny Prigozhin, issued July 13, 2023: "If I were he, I’d be careful what I ate. I’d be keeping my eye on my menu."

developing...