New Delhi: Wagner mercenary rebels chief Yevgeny Prigozhin on Saturday said that he has ordered his mercenaries to halt their march on Moscow to avoid shedding Russian blood, news agency AP reported. Rebel Russian mercenaries stormed towards Moscow on Saturday after taking over a southern city overnight, with Russia’s military attacking them from the air but failing to stop their rapid advance. President Vladimir Putin, who faced the first serious threat to his 23-year rule, swore to crush an armed rebellion he likened to Russia’s Civil War a century ago. The fighters of the Wagner private army led by former Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin were already close to the capital, having seized the city of Rostov and embarked on an 1,100 km (680 mile) dash to Moscow.
Troop carriers and a flatbed truck with a tank speeding past the city of Voronezh more half way to Moscow were seen, where a helicopter shot at them, news agency Reuters reported. But there were no reports of the rebels encountering any significant resistance on the highway. Russian media showed pictures of small groups of police operating machine gun posts on Moscow’s southern outskirts Authorities in the Lipetsk region south of the capital told residents to stay home.
More than 100 firefighters were battling a fire at a fuel depot in Voronezh. Video footage obtained by Reuters showed it exploding in a fireball shortly after a helicopter flew by. Prigozhin accused Russia’s military of hitting civilian targets from the air as it tried to slow the column’s advance.
Prigozhin says his men are on a “march for justice” to remove corrupt and incompetent commanders he blames for mishandling the war in Ukraine. In a televised address from the Kremlin, Putin said Russia’s very survival was at stake. “We are fighting for the lives and security of our people, for our sovereignty and independence, for the right to remain Russia, a state with a thousand-year history,” he said.
“All those who deliberately stepped on the path of betrayal, who prepared an armed insurrection, who took the path of blackmail and terrorist methods, will suffer inevitable punishment, will answer both to the law and to our people.” A defiant Prigozhin quickly replied that he and his men had no intention of turning themselves in.
“The president makes a deep mistake when he talks about treason. We are patriots of our motherland, we fought and are fighting for it,” Prigozhin said in an audio message. “We don’t want the country to continue to live in corruption, deceit and bureaucracy.”
Prigozhin, whose private army fought the most brutal battles in Ukraine even as he quarrelled for months with the top brass, said he had captured the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District in Rostov without firing a shot. In Rostov, which serves as the main logistical base for Russia’s entire invasion force, residents walked around calmly, filming on mobile phones as Wagner fighters in armoured vehicles and battle tanks took up positions.