Wagner group mutiny against Russia updates | June 24, 2023
The HinduRussian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and his private Wagner militia had begun marching towards Moscow in an armed rebellion aimed at ousting Russia’s defence minister, but after getting within 200 km of the capital, the Wagner chief asked his troops to turn around to “avoid bloodshed”. Prigozhin had earlier said his mercenaries seized “all military facilities” in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and were also deployed in Voronezh as the group moved northwards towards Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the mutiny a “stab in the back” to Russia, and said in an emergency televised address on Saturday that an “armed mutiny” by the Wagner Group mercenary force was treason, and that anyone who had taken up arms against the Russian military would be punished. The dramatic turn, with many details unclear, looked like the biggest domestic crisis President Vladimir Putin has faced since he ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine — something he called a “special military operation” — in February last year.