Russian generals late on Friday accused Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the outspoken mercenary tycoon, of making an attempt to mount a coup towards President Vladimir V. Putin, because the Russian authorities opened an investigation into Mr. Prigozhin for “organizing an armed rebellion.”
The long-running feud between Mr. Prigozhin and the Russian army over the warfare in Ukraine has now escalated into an open confrontation, establishing the most important problem to Mr. Putin’s authority since he launched his invasion of Ukraine 16 months in the past.
Videos circulating broadly on social media confirmed that army and nationwide guard armored automobiles had been deployed in Moscow and the southern metropolis of Rostov-on-Don, close to the entrance line in Ukraine the place Mr. Prigozhin’s fighters had been working.
Mr. Prigozhin on Friday accused the Russian army of attacking his Wagner mercenary forces and, in a collection of recordings posted to social media, pledged that his fighters would retaliate. Russian authorities, in flip, accused Mr. Prigozhin — whose broadsides towards the Russian Defense Ministry had been tolerated by Mr. Putin for months — of making an attempt to foment a revolt.
“This is a stab in the back of the country and the president,” Gen. Vladimir Alekseyev, the deputy head of Russia’s army intelligence company, mentioned in a video attraction to Mr. Prigozhin’s fighters, urging them to name off any riot. “This is a coup.”
Mr. Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenary drive has proved pivotal to the Russian warfare effort in Ukraine, however in current months, he repeatedly chastised Russia’s prime brass for alleged corruption and indifference to common troopers’ lives. On Friday night time, he took his accusations to a brand new degree, claiming that the Russian army had attacked Wagner encampments, killing “a huge number of fighters.”
“The evil borne by the country’s military leadership must be stopped,” Mr. Prigozhin (pronounced pree-GOH-zhin) mentioned in one among a collection of voice recordings posted to the Telegram social community after 9 p.m. Moscow time.
Minutes later, he urged that his Wagner mercenary drive was ready to go on the offensive towards Russia’s personal Defense Ministry, saying, “There’s 25,000 of us, and we are going to figure out why chaos is happening in the country.”
He denied that the actions had been a “military coup.”
“This is a march for justice,” he mentioned in one other audio message on Telegram. “Our actions aren’t interfering with the troops in any way.”
Just previous midnight Moscow time, Russia’s prosecutor normal introduced that Mr. Prigozhin was being investigated “on suspicion of organizing an armed rebellion” and would face as a lot as 20 years in jail if prosecuted.
The Wagner chief then defiantly took to Telegram once more, saying his fighters had been approaching town of Rostov-on-Don and including: “We are going farther. We will go to the end.”
Mr. Prigozhin’s whereabouts remained unclear, and there was no instant affirmation that his forces had been really approaching town.
While President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine had but to remark as of Friday night time, one among his advisers, Mykhailo Podolyak, warned on Twitter that “tumultuous times are coming” for Russia.
White House officers mentioned they had been following the occasions, however wouldn’t say far more. “We are monitoring the situation and will be consulting with allies and partners on these developments,” mentioned Adam Hodge, a National Security Council spokesman.
Mr. Prigozhin, a St. Petersburg restaurateur who leveraged his private connections with Mr. Putin into profitable authorities contracts, gained worldwide prominence after his on-line “troll factory” interfered within the 2016 American presidential election — and after his Wagner fighters had been deployed in Syria and throughout Africa as a shadow drive believed to be preventing for Kremlin pursuits.
For months the Russian warfare effort has been hampered by the bitter feud between Mr. Prigozhin and prime army leaders, whom he has accused in scathing phrases of incompetence in conducting the warfare. He has asserted that Russia’s prime brass have refused to supply Wagner forces with wanted ammunition whilst they fought alongside the Russian army for management of the Ukrainian metropolis of Bakhmut.
But by no means earlier than had Mr. Prigozhin accused Russia’s army leaders of attacking his forces, nor asserted in such stark phrases that the Kremlin’s said justification for the warfare was nonsense.
In a 30-minute video launched on Friday, Mr. Prigozhin had described his nation’s invasion of Ukraine as a “racket” perpetrated by a corrupt elite chasing cash and glory with out concern for Russian lives.
He additionally accused the Russian minister of protection, Sergei Okay. Shoigu, of orchestrating a lethal assault with missiles and helicopters on camps to the rear of the Russian traces in Ukraine, the place his troopers of fortune had been bivouacked. And he accused Mr. Shoigu of overseeing the strikes himself from the city of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, close to Ukraine.
The mercenary chief’s claims couldn’t be instantly verified. The Russian protection ministry denied the allegations, saying in an announcement that the messages Mr. Prigozhin had posted about supposed strikes on Wagner camps “do not correspond to reality.”
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, mentioned that Mr. Putin was “aware of all events around Prigozhin,” based on Interfax, a Russian news company.
Mr. Prigozhin’s accusations created a ripple impact amongst Russian pro-war activists, who concern that an open battle between the military and Wagner forces might threaten the Russian entrance traces through the Ukrainian counteroffensive. In Ukraine, some seen his statements as extra proof of inside divisions throughout the Russian warfare effort.
In an earlier videotaped speech, Mr. Prigozhin didn’t explicitly impugn Mr. Putin, as an alternative casting him as a frontrunner being misled by his officers. But in dismissing the Kremlin’s narrative that the invasion was a necessity for the Russian nation, Mr. Prigozhin went additional than anybody in Russia’s safety institution in publicly difficult the knowledge of the warfare.
“The war wasn’t needed to return Russian citizens to our bosom, nor to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine,” Mr. Prigozhin mentioned, referring to Mr. Putin’s preliminary justifications for the warfare. “The war was needed so that a bunch of animals could simply exult in glory.”
Friday’s diatribes deepened the enigma of Mr. Prigozhin’s ambiguous position in Mr. Putin’s system. His Wagner troops, composed of veteran fighters in addition to hundreds of convicts whom Mr. Prigozhin personally recruited from Russian prisons, proved key in capturing the Ukrainian metropolis of Bakhmut in May after a monthslong battle.
But, through the battle for Bakhmut, Mr. Prigozhin additionally emerged as a populist political determine, excoriating Russia’s army management for corruption. His indignant recordings and movies posted to the Telegram messaging community forged prime army and Kremlin officers as unaware and uncaring of the struggles of normal Russian troopers.
So far, Mr. Putin has not reined in Mr. Prigozhin, whilst Mr. Putin’s safety forces have jailed or fined hundreds of Russians for criticizing the army or opposing the warfare. Some individuals who know Mr. Putin have mentioned they imagine that he nonetheless sees Mr. Prigozhin as a loyal servant making use of wanted stress on a sprawling army equipment. Others theorized that the Kremlin had orchestrated Mr. Prigozhin’s tirades towards Mr. Shoigu, the protection minister, to deflect blame from Mr. Putin himself.
But Friday’s statements difficult the image, with Mr. Prigozhin going after not simply Mr. Shoigu but in addition unnamed “oligarchs” round Mr. Putin, whereas casting your entire official rhetoric across the invasion as a sham. He mentioned there was “nothing out of the ordinary” in Ukraine’s army posture on the eve of the February 2022 invasion — difficult the Kremlin’s justification that Ukraine was on the verge of attacking Russian-backed separatist territory in Ukraine’s east.
“Our holy war with those who offend the Russian people, with those who are trying to humiliate them, has turned into a racket,” he mentioned.
Mr. Prigozhin additionally asserted in his video that Ukraine’s counteroffensive to achieve again territory was going far more poorly for Russia than the federal government was letting on. On Telegram, pro-war commentators rapidly pushed again towards that declare, together with Igor Girkin, a former paramilitary commander who himself has usually criticized Russia’s prime brass.
“Prigozhin already should have been handed over to a military tribunal for many things,” Mr. Girkin wrote. “Now also for treason.”
Julian E. Barnes and Cassandra Vinograd contributed reporting.
Source: www.nytimes.com