Russia’s FSB security service has opened a criminal case for armed mutiny against Wagner’s Yevgeny Prigozhin after the mercenary chief accused the Russian military of targeting his forces and vowed to “destroy” his rivals.
In an extraordinary series of audio clips released late on Friday, Prigozhin claimed that a Russian rocket attack had killed scores of his fighters, vowing to take “revenge” and “stop the evil brought by the military leadership of the country”.
“Those who destroyed today our guys, who destroyed tens, tens of thousands of lives of Russian soldiers will be punished. I’m asking: no one resist,” Prigozhin said.
Prigozhin also published a video, which he claims shows the aftermath of the rocket attack on a Wagner camp in Russia’s southern Rostov region.
In a virtual declaration of war against his rivals in the Russian military, Prigozhin said he controlled 25,000 fighters and that together “we are going to figure out why the chaos is happening in the country”.
“Anyone who wants should join. We need to end this mess,” he said.
“Everyone who will try to resist, we will consider them a danger and destroy them immediately, including any checkpoints on our way. And any aviation that we see above our heads,” he added.
“I’m asking everyone to remain calm, do not succumb to provocations, and remain in their houses. Ideally, those along our way, do not go outside. After we finished what we started, we will return to the frontline to protect our motherland,” Prigozhin said.
The FSB said that Prigozhin’s statements and actions constituted “calls for the start of an armed civil conflict on the territory of the Russian Federation”.
Russian state news agency Tass, citing law enforcement agencies, reported that security measures have been strengthened in Moscow, with critical facilities taken under increased protection. Unconfirmed footage also appeared to show military vehicles on the streets of the Russian capital.
Amid rumours that columns of Wagner fighters were already on the move, General Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russia’s Ukraine campaign, released a video address ordering the mercenaries to remain loyal to Putin.
“I urge you to stop,” said Surovikin, who was previously understood to be close to Prigozhin. “The enemy is just waiting for the internal political situation to worsen in our country.”
Early on Saturday, State-run Channel 1 broke into regular programming for a special news bulletin in which the country’s best-known news anchor, Yekaterina Andreyeva, denied Prigozhin’s claims of a Russian military attack against his fighters and repeated the FSB statement.
The string of statements marked an unprecedented escalation of infighting among Russia’s elite, which has pitted Prigozhin against defence minister Sergei Shoigu and senior military commanders.
The FSB urged Wagner fighters “not to make irreparable mistakes, to stop any forceful actions against the Russian people, not to carry out the criminal and treacherous orders of Prigozhin, and to take measures to detain him”.
In a separate statement, prosecutors said that Prigozhin could face between 12 and 20 years in prison.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the Russian president was “aware of the situation unfolding around Prigozhin”.
“All necessary measures are being taken,” Russian state media quoted Peskov saying.
Early on Saturday, Prigozhin released another voice message in which he claimed without offering any evidence that his forces had left Ukraine and were entering the southern Russian city of Rostov.
“Right now we have crossed all the border points... The border guards greeted us and hugged our fighters. Now we are entering Rostov,” he said. “If anyone gets in our way, we will destroy everything... We extend our hand to everyone. We move forward, we are going all the way!”
According to several Telegram channels linked to security services, emergency protocols were earlier implemented the city, involving the full mobilisation of the local security services.
Pictures published by local media showed armour vehicles appearing on the streets of the city. Baza, a Telegram channel linked to Russian security services, reported that helicopters were seen flying over Rostov.
It was not immediately clear what Prigozhin’s objectives were and whether his threats were directed at the Kremlin.
“This is not a military coup, this is a march of justice. Our actions do not hinder the armed forces in any way,” the Wagner chief said, adding that the “majority of soldiers” were on his side.
The warlord has been arguing with top military officials for months, singling out Shoigu, over battlefield failures.
Earlier in the day, Prigozhin accused Moscow’s leadership of lying to the public about the justifications for invading Ukraine, denying Moscow’s claims that Kyiv was planning to launch an offensive on the Russian-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine in February 2022.
“The ministry of defence is trying to deceive the public and the president and spin the story that there was insane levels of aggression from the Ukrainian side and that they were going to attack us together with the whole Nato block,” the Wagner head said.
Prigozhin also said Russia’s leadership could have avoided the war by negotiating with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Prigozhin’s tirades on Friday marked a new escalation of his war of words with political rivals, directly contradicting Putin’s rationale for the invasion, and implying it was based on lies in the harshest criticism by any prominent Russian war figure of the decision to attack Ukraine.
“What was the war for? The war needed for Shoigu to receive a hero star … The oligarchic clan that rules Russia needed the war,” he said.
While the warlord was careful not to directly attack the Russian president, Prigozhin did question several decisions made by Putin, including the Kremlin’s decision to exchange more than 100 captured Azov fighters for Viktor Medvedchuk, a close ally of Putin.
Prigozhin also accused the Russian military leadership of lying to the public about the scale of its losses and setbacks in Ukraine.
“The Russian army is retreating in all directions and shedding a lot of blood … What they tell us is the deepest deception.”
Tatyana Stanovaya, the founder of the political analysis firm R Politik, said that after months of testing the boundaries of his power, Prigozhin appeared to have reached a limit.
“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,” she wrote on Telegram.
She added that while there was no immediate sign that Vladimir Putin’s hold on power was under threat, the dramatic episode will likely damage his standing.
“Many within the elite will now personally fault Putin for letting the situation escalate to such extremes and for his lack of a timely adequate response.”