The aggressive rhetoric of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the private mercenary company Wagner, against Russian military commands has gone too far. Yesterday, Friday, he accused the Russian army of attacking the camp of his fighters, encouraged a rebellion and assured that the Minister of Defense, Serguei Xoigu, very close to President Vladimir Putin, would be arrested. Hours later, the Federal Service of (FSB, equivalent to the old KGB) accused him of armed rebellion.
Russia’s Anti-Terrorism Committee assured that “the statements made on behalf of the oligarch had no basis” and announced that the FSB had opened a criminal case against the controversial head of the Wagners for calling for “armed rebellion “.
Hours earlier, Prigozhin had accused the army of attacking the camps of his fighters, without fully explaining his words, and called for an end to the “evil” of the Russian military leadership.
“The command committee of the Wagner Group has decided that those who have military responsibility in the country must be arrested,” Yevgeny Prigozhin said in an audio message posted on his Telegram channel. He also asked that there be no “resistance” to his troops and stated that Minister Xoigú would be “arrested”. He also accused him of ordering to hide 2,000 bodies of his mercenaries in a morgue in southern Russia.
After encouraging a “rebellion” against the military commands, he assured that he had 25,000 men and called on the Russians, especially the soldiers, to join him. “We are 25,000 and we will determine why the peasant chaos reigns. Our strategic reserves are the whole army and the whole country”, he said before continuing to call on “anyone who wants to join us” to “eliminate the mess”.
Wagner’s men spearheaded Russia’s months-long offensive to take the town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine after a fierce battle that left many casualties. During these battles he harshly criticized Xoigu and the Chief of Staff, Valeri Guerassimov, for not sending enough ammunition to his men.
After the opening of the criminal case against him, Prigojin assured that his action was a military coup. “It is a march for justice. Our actions will not interfere with (the activity of) the troops” in Ukraine, he assured.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov assured the Russian agency Interfax that the Russian president had been informed of the decision. “All the necessary measures are being taken”, he assured.
