Rebellious Wagner Chief Halts Advance, Turns Back South to Avoid Bloodshed

Rebellious Wagner Group's chief Yevgeny Prigozhin halts further advance towards Kremlin, and turns back his Army southward saying 'to avoid unnecessary Russian bloodshed'.

Yesterday, the Saturday of 24th June 2023 the world witnessed the development of an almost military coup (although called as 'March for Justice') within the Russian armed brigade. The 'return to base', command was issued by their own Chief after strikes a deal with Kremlin to move his troop back to Belarus, after Putin drops ‘treason’ charges on its rebellious ally.

From this latest development, Russia on Saturday appeared to have averted a near possible bloody civil war with their ally on home soil. Mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said he had ordered the Wagner fighters to end their march onwards Moscow and return to their bases in southern Russia.

Earlier on Saturday, angered by the Wagner's revolt, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president made an emergency television broadcast against the developing coup as “a deadly threat to our state”. However, at the end of an extraordinarily eventful day, the decision to 'turn back south' was made by the Wagner Group. It was followed after their negotiations with the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko.

“Now the moment has come to shed the blood,”

he had said earlier. However, later he said.

“Therefore, realising all the responsibility for the fact that Russian blood will be shed from one side, we will turn our convoys around and go in the opposite direction to our field camps.”

The decision by Yevgeny Prigozhin came in after Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the criminal case that was opened against Prigozhin for his armed mutiny would be dropped, and the Wagner troop who had taken part in his march for justice would not face any action in recognition of their previous service to Russia.

As a reaction to the developing coup, Kremlin mobilised its forces and prepared for defense as Prigozhin's army progressed towards Moscow. Russian Army officials is said to have dug anti-tank ditches on its key highways and entry points, secured a perimeter by erecting several artillery emplacements along and also within the city limits, along with several infantry vehicles on the streets of Moscow. Putin has vowed that the Russian state would deal brutally against the largest armed insurrection ever since the fall of the Soviet Union.

“The fate of our people is being decided. It’s an attempt to subvert us from inside. This is treason in the face of those who are fighting on the front,”

Putin told the Russian public.

“This is a stab in the back of our troops and the people of Russia.” and the response, he promised, would be brutal.

“Any internal mutiny is a deadly threat to our state, to us as a nation,” Putin said.

In a preparedness action against the possible threat coming towards the capital, the city’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin had urged the residents of Moscow to stay at home, declaring Monday as a non-working day, a decision made to minimise risks.

Earlier on Saturday afternoon, Prigozhin had demanded to speak to the Russian top Military Chiefs, saying,

“We have arrived here; we want to receive the chief of the general staff and Shoigu,” Prigozhin said in one video. “Unless they come, we’ll be here; we’ll blockade the city of Rostov and head for Moscow.”

However on Saturday afternoon, Prigozhin looked isolated as several former military allies denouncing his rebellion.

A powerful ally of Putin, Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya also called Prigozhin a traitor and said he was sending Chechen troops against the mutiny. In what is believed as the first time Wagner chief has also directly criticised Putin, saying the Russian leader had been “deeply mistaken” in calling him a traitor.

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said,

“Everyone who chooses the path of evil destroys himself. Whoever throws hundreds of thousands into the war, eventually must barricade himself in the Moscow region from those whom he himself armed.”