UPDATE:
In the latest development, within the last half hour the situation in Russia has changed dramatically as fighters loyal to Russia’s Wagner mercenary group will stop their advance towards Moscow to avoid a devastating civil conflict, the group’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday.
In a voice recording posted to his Telegram channel, Prigozhin said his troops had got within 200 kilometers of Moscow in a single day, but that they would now stand down.
“During this time we did not spill a single drop of blood of our fighters,” he said. “Taking responsibility for the fact that Russian blood will be shed — on one side — we will turn our columns around and go in the opposite direction to field camps, according to the plan,” he said.
Russia is close to civil war. President Vladimir Putin said he has ordered the army to crush a rebellion led by Wagner’s mercenary leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin. CNN is calling it “an outright military confrontation” that is a “direct attack on Putin’s military leadership.”
Meanwhile, Prigozhin and his army have taken control of the Russian military command base in Rostov-on-Don in the south of the country. Wagner units are now moving north through the Voronezh region with the goal of reaching Moscow.
A source close to the Russian Armed Forces General Staff told the Russian website iStories that President Putin aims to “eliminate” Prigozhin, and then offer amnesty to all Wagner fighters. According to the source, Putin does not have the necessary forces to stop Prigozhin’s advance into Moscow and is assembling a group from units not deployed at the front (Chechen formations, National Guard, Ministry of Internal Affairs, and FSB).
In recent hours, several private jets have left Moscow, and FlightRadar24 also reported the departure of a plane used by Belarusian President Lukashenko, a close Putin ally, bound for Turkey. Shortly before, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking on the phone with Putin, said in fact he was ready to play his part in a peaceful resolution of the situation.
The alarm in Moscow is growing as the city’s mayor is urging people to stay indoor and flights leaving Moscow are selling out in anticipation of Wagner troops descending on the city.
There are unconfirmed rumors that Putin has fled from the capital to St. Petersburg.
