Summary
If you’re just joining us, here’s a roundup of all the latest developments:
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In an abrupt about-face, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said he had called off his troops’ march on Moscow and ordered them to move out of Rostov. Under a deal brokered by Belarus, Prigozhin agreed to leave Russia and move to Belarus. He will not face charges and Wagner troops who took part in the rebellion will not face any action in recognition of their previous service to Russia.
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In a statement, Prigozhin said that he wanted to avoid the spilling of “Russian blood”. “Now the moment has come when blood can be shed,” 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.”
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The Wagner leader was later pictured leaving the headquarters of the southern military district (SMD) in Rostov, which his forces had occupied on Saturday. Wagner forces also shot down three military helicopters and had entered the Lipetsk region, about 360km (225 miles) south of Moscow, before they were called back.
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Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko’s press office was the first to announce that Prigozhin would be backing down, saying that Lukashenko had negotiated a de-escalation with the Wagner head after talking to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko said that Putin has since thanked him for his negotiation efforts.
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Putin has not publicly commented on Lukashenko’s deal with Prigozhin. He appeared on television earlier on Saturday in an emergency broadcast, issuing a nationwide call for unity in the face of a mutinous strike that he compared to the revolution of 1917. “Any internal mutiny is a deadly threat to our state, to us as a nation,” he said.
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Putin reportedly took a plane out of Moscow heading north-west on Saturday afternoon. It is unclear where he went or his current whereabouts.
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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Putin was “obviously very afraid” and “probably hiding”. In his latest evening address, Zelenskiy said: “Today the world saw that the bosses of Russia do not control anything. Nothing at all. Complete chaos. Complete absence of any predictability. And it is happening on Russian territory, which is fully loaded with weapons.”
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US spy agencies picked up information suggesting the Wagner leader was planning to take action against Russia’s military leadership as early as mid-June, US media has reported. The Washington Post and New York Times that said US intelligence officials had conducted briefings at the White House, the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill about the potential for unrest in nuclear-armed Russia a full day before it unfolded.
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Analysts have been confounded by events, with most saying it is too early to say whether Putin will fall but agreeing that he has been substantially damaged by the mutiny. The Institute for the Study of War noted that the Kremlin struggled to put together a coherent response to the mutiny and that “Wagner likely could have reached the outskirts of Moscow if Prigozhin chose to order them to do so.”
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Ukraine’s military said on Saturday its forces made advances near Bakhmut, on the eastern front, and further south. Deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said an offensive was launched near a group of villages ringing Bakhmut, which was taken by Wagner forces in May after months of fighting. Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, commander of the southern front, said Ukrainian forces had liberated an area near Krasnohorivka, west of the Russian-held regional centre of Donetsk.
Key events
All transport restrictions lifted in region previously controlled by Wagner mutineers
All transport restrictions in Russia’s Rostov region have been lifted, including those on highways, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday, citing local officials.
“Bus and railway stations are working in normal mode. Tickets are on sale, all destinations are on schedule,” Sergey Tyurin, deputy minister of regional policy and mass communications for the Rostov region was quoted as saying.
Independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta is reporting that PMC Wagner’s military hardware damaged over 10,000 square metres (6.2 square miles) of road surface.
In Rostov-on-Don, PMC Wagner’s military hardware damaged over 10,000 square metres of road surface
According to Mayor Alexey Logvinenko, the repairs will begin today, the plan is for them to be finished in two days.https://t.co/0cZacHDtf7 pic.twitter.com/xvVYUGBne1— Novaya Gazeta Europe (@novayagazeta_en) June 25, 2023
It cites Mayor Alexey Logvinenko as saying it is expected that repairs to the road will take two days.
The Wagner fighters had captured the city of Rostov overnight on Friday and had reportedly maintained complete control of the region on Saturday.
But on Saturday night, Wagner fighters loaded tanks on trailers and began withdrawing from the Rostov military headquarters they had seized, a Reuters witness said.
China Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Russia Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko have met in Beijing, in the first public meeting of diplomats from the two countries since mutinous mercenaries threatened to storm the Russian capital.
The two exchanged views on “international and regional issues of common concern”, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Sunday.
They also exchanged views on China-Russia relations, the ministry said on its website.
Chinese leaders have not responded publicly to news of the armed rebellion and the Wall Street Journal reports the events received limited coverage in Chinese media, in stark contrast to the in-depth coverage of the mutiny in Western meedia.
A civilian man died after Russian forces shelled Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson, local governor said on Sunday.
Ukraine recaptured the city of Kherson and parts of the Kherson region in November after months of Russian occupation, but Russian forces regularly shell the city and surrounding areas from the opposite side of Dnipro River.
“One of the shells exploded right in the middle of the room,” Oleksandr Prokudin said on the Telegram messaging app.
He said another woman was trapped under the rubble but alive.
Ukrainian authorities also reported that Russians shelled the south of Dnipropetrovsk region during the night, injuring one person and damaging three private houses.
Reuters said they were unable immediately to verify the report.
Analysts have been trying to explain the tumultuous events of the last 24 hours, which saw the greatest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin in his more than two decades in power.
Many questions remained unanswered, including whether chief mutineer Yevgeny Prigozhin would be joined in exile by any of Wagner’s troops and what role, if any, he might have there.
But the risk for Putin is whether he will be seen as weak, analysts said.
“Putin has been diminished for all time by this affair,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst said on CNN.
A possible motivation for Prigozhin’s rebellion was the Russian Defense Ministry’s demand, which Putin backed, that private companies sign contracts with it by July 1. Prigozhin had refused to do it.
“It may well be that he struck now because he saw that deadline as a danger to his control of his troops,” Herbst wrote in an article for the Atlantic Council.
Ukrainians hoped the Russian infighting would create opportunities for their army to take back territory seized by Russian forces.
“These events will have been of great comfort to the Ukrainian government and the military,” said Ben Barry, senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He said that even with a deal, Putin’s position has probably been weakened.
The Ukrainian military claims to have “liquidated” 720 Russian military people in the last 24 hours, in unverified figures released today.
As of today, the Russians have suffered a total of 224,630 combat losses since the start of the war on 24 February, according to the Ukrainian ministry of defence. Yesterday, the Ukrainians claimed to have caused 223,910 Russian losses.
The Ukrainians also said in the last day they destroyed six tanks, 19 artillery systems, two anti-aircraft war systems, 41 cruise missiles, among other military equipment.
Both Ukraine and Russia have consistently claimed the other side has sustained devastatingly high casualties, but it has not been possible to verify battlefield claims from either side.
Western diplomats told Reuters on 5 June that Russia’s deaths and casualties totalled around 200,000.
An “anti-terrorist operation regime” was still in force in Moscow on Sunday, a day after mutinous Wagner mercenaries threatened to storm the Russian capital, in a dramatic security crisis for President Vladimir Putin.
The anti-terrorist regime was introduced in Moscow on Saturday, as the Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s forces appeared to advance on the capital, with authorities asking residents to limit travel.
Moscow authorities also said that a day off work introduced to curb movement around the city on Monday would remain in place for security reasons.
Authorities in the Kaluga region, south of Moscow, said on Saturday they were starting to lift road restrictions introduced to stop the Wagner rebellion.
In the southern city of Voronezh, where the army said it was leading “combat” a day earlier, emergency services they put out a huge fire at an oil depot that burned during the mutiny.
Authorities had not explained the cause of the fire, with images on social media showing a large black cloud of smoke. Some Russian media reported there was a helicopter nearby before an explosion in the area.
Here’s our full report on the latest developments
The chief of the rebel Wagner mercenary force Yevgeny Prigozhin will leave Russia and won’t face charges after calling off his troops’ advance towards Moscow, as reports emerged that US spy agencies had picked up signs days ago that he was preparing to rise up against Russia’s defence establishment.
Late on Saturday, video emerged of Prigozhin leaving the headquarters of the southern military district in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don after agreeing to move to Belarus. His exact whereabouts on Sunday morning were not clear. Images also showed Wagner fighters withdrawing from the city.
The developments came amid reports in the Washington Post and New York Times that said US intelligence officials had conducted briefings at the White House, the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill about the potential for unrest in nuclear-armed Russia a full day before it unfolded.
Read more:
Summary
If you’re just joining us, here’s a roundup of all the latest developments:
-
In an abrupt about-face, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said he had called off his troops’ march on Moscow and ordered them to move out of Rostov. Under a deal brokered by Belarus, Prigozhin agreed to leave Russia and move to Belarus. He will not face charges and Wagner troops who took part in the rebellion will not face any action in recognition of their previous service to Russia.
-
In a statement, Prigozhin said that he wanted to avoid the spilling of “Russian blood”. “Now the moment has come when blood can be shed,” 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 Wagner leader was later pictured leaving the headquarters of the southern military district (SMD) in Rostov, which his forces had occupied on Saturday. Wagner forces also shot down three military helicopters and had entered the Lipetsk region, about 360km (225 miles) south of Moscow, before they were called back.
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Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko’s press office was the first to announce that Prigozhin would be backing down, saying that Lukashenko had negotiated a de-escalation with the Wagner head after talking to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko said that Putin has since thanked him for his negotiation efforts.
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Putin has not publicly commented on Lukashenko’s deal with Prigozhin. He appeared on television earlier on Saturday in an emergency broadcast, issuing a nationwide call for unity in the face of a mutinous strike that he compared to the revolution of 1917. “Any internal mutiny is a deadly threat to our state, to us as a nation,” he said.
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Putin reportedly took a plane out of Moscow heading north-west on Saturday afternoon. It is unclear where he went or his current whereabouts.
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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Putin was “obviously very afraid” and “probably hiding”. In his latest evening address, Zelenskiy said: “Today the world saw that the bosses of Russia do not control anything. Nothing at all. Complete chaos. Complete absence of any predictability. And it is happening on Russian territory, which is fully loaded with weapons.”
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US spy agencies picked up information suggesting the Wagner leader was planning to take action against Russia’s military leadership as early as mid-June, US media has reported. The Washington Post and New York Times that said US intelligence officials had conducted briefings at the White House, the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill about the potential for unrest in nuclear-armed Russia a full day before it unfolded.
-
Analysts have been confounded by events, with most saying it is too early to say whether Putin will fall but agreeing that he has been substantially damaged by the mutiny. The Institute for the Study of War noted that the Kremlin struggled to put together a coherent response to the mutiny and that “Wagner likely could have reached the outskirts of Moscow if Prigozhin chose to order them to do so.”
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Ukraine’s military said on Saturday its forces made advances near Bakhmut, on the eastern front, and further south. Deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said an offensive was launched near a group of villages ringing Bakhmut, which was taken by Wagner forces in May after months of fighting. Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, commander of the southern front, said Ukrainian forces had liberated an area near Krasnohorivka, west of the Russian-held regional centre of Donetsk.
Ukrainian forces have reset and have been undertaking major offensive operations on three main axes in southern and eastern Ukraine over the past few days, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update.
Ukrainian forces are using the experiences from the first two weeks of the counter-offensive to refine tactics for assaulting the deep, well prepared Russian defences. Ukrainian units are making gradual but steady tactical progress in key areas.
It notes that Russian forces have been making their own “significant effort” to launch an attack in the Serebryanka Forest near Kremina in the eastern region of Luhansk.
This probably reflects continued Russian senior leadership orders to go on the offensive whenever possible. Russia has made some small gains, but Ukrainian forces have prevented a breakthrough.
The situation around the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don was calm and street traffic resumed, RIA state news agency said on Sunday after Yevgeny Prigozhin and his mercenaries left the city.
In a video on the agency’s Telegram messaging app, which it said was taken in the city of Rostov-on-Don, a man was sweeping a street and cars were moving along another street, Reuters reported.
