Yevgeny Prigozhin has vowed to take ‘revenge’ after accusing Russia’s military of targeting his forces in a rocket attack
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Moscow taking anti-terrorist steps to boost security – mayor
Moscow’s mayor says anti-terrorist measures are being taken to reinforce security in the Russian capital.
Sergei Sobyanin said the city was also introducing additional checks on roads, Reuters reports.
Key events
Rostov regional governor Vasily Golubev has also said all public events scheduled for this weekend in Rostov-on-Don have been cancelled.
Municipal transport in the city was operational “but the routes around the city centre have been changed”, he said on Telegram.
Suburban transport from Azov, Bataysk and Aksai works regularly. There are temporary restrictions on the Taganrog [port city], as well as on the northern direction from Rostov.
Some more images are emerging of Rostov-on-Don, showing police and armoured vehicles on the streets:
Rostov residents warned against going into city centre
The Rostov region’s governor has urged residents not to travel into Rostov-on-Don’s city centre and to avoid leaving their homes if possible.
Vasily Golubev posted on Telegram that law enforcement agencies were doing “everything necessary to ensure the safety of residents in the area”.
He said he had given “the necessary instructions to the Rostov city administration and the life support services of Rostov to take the necessary measures to preserve the normal functioning of all city systems”.
I keep the issue under control, regularly listening to reports.
Videos posted on local Rostov-on-Don Telegram channels early on Saturday showed armed men in uniform skirting the city’s regional police headquarters, belonging to the interior ministry. Reuters reported it was not immediately clear who the armed men were.
The governor of the Lipetsk region in central Russia says the M-4 motorway connecting Moscow with southern regions has been closed to traffic at the border with the Voronezh region, about 400km (250 miles) south of the Russian capital, Reuters reports.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin appears to have sent an armed convoy of his mercenary fighters on a 1,200km (750-mile) drive towards Moscow, having said he intends to oust the military leadership.
The rising tensions between Russia and the Wagner group could affect the outcomes of the Ukraine war as it fractures Russia’s military amid Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces, according to an expert.
Jessica Genauer, an international relations expert at Flinders University in Australia, said:
There’s a lot of uncertainty at the moment as the situation is still evolving, but in any case, it’s clear this is not good news for Putin, and it’s not good news for Russia.
Even if this does create widespread instability, I would see this as part of a far bigger picture that there are cracks starting to emerge in the political domain in Russia as a result of the fact Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has not succeeded in the way Putin expected.
Moscow taking anti-terrorist steps to boost security – mayor
Moscow’s mayor says anti-terrorist measures are being taken to reinforce security in the Russian capital.
Sergei Sobyanin said the city was also introducing additional checks on roads, Reuters reports.
The Institute for the Study of War has also given some useful context about Prigozhin’s focus on Rostov, which is home to the Russian southern military district command – key to Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine.
Following Wagner’s withdrawal from Bakhmut, a large number of Wagner forces likely remained in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and also a Wagner training facility in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai, all of which are close to Rostov oblast.
That would make Rostov “the most viable target of a Wagner armed rebellion,” the US thinktank says. And an attack on the military leadership there would have “significant impacts” on the Russian war effort in Ukraine, the ISW says.
The southern military district’s 58th combined arms army is “currently decisively engaged in defensive operations against Ukrainian counteroffensives in southern Ukraine, and the command centre for the Russian joint group of forces in Ukraine as a whole”, it writes.
Rostov-on-Don is therefore a critical command and control membrane for the Russian army, and any threats to the MoD’s presence are likely to have ramifications on some critical aspects of the war effort.
Footage shows armed men skirting Rostov police HQ
Videos posted on Russian local Rostov-on-Don Telegram channels early on Saturday showed armed men in uniform skirting the city’s regional police headquarters, belonging to the interior ministry.
Reuters reports it was not immediately clear who the armed men were. The news agency was able to verify the location as the police headquarters building, but not to determine when the video was shot.
Authorities in southern Russian regions had said measures were being taken to ensure public safety after Yevgeny Prigozhin indicated he planned to despatch men to Moscow to oust the military leadership.
Russian authorities have also stepped up security measures in the Lipetsk region south of Moscow, the region’s governor has said.
Agence France-Presse quoted Igor Artamonov as saying:
A decision has been taken to reinforce security measures in the region. I ask everyone to remain calm.
The Lipetsk region is about 400km (250 miles) south of Moscow.
Russian authorities said on Saturday that security measures had been tightened in several regions after Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin said his forces had crossed the border from Ukraine and vowed to “go to the end” to topple the Russian military leadership.
In the southern region of Rostov, officials have asked residents to stay home.
The latest analysis from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) also says Prigozhin’s likely intention is to gain the support of senior Russian officers, seeking to rally them by seizing on longstanding grievances about high Russian losses in Ukraine.
The US thinktank points out that Wagner needs their support because it likely does not have access to the materiel required to militarily depose the Russian ministry of defence (MoD) leadership.
However, it notes, Prigozhin has “likely miscalculated the level of support for Wagner as one of Wagner’s most high-profile alleged allies, [Sergei] Surovikin, called on Wagner personnel to not follow Prigozhin’s orders”.
The ISW says:
Surovikin’s rejection represents a major blow to Wagner’s ability to rally elements of the MoD to its cause, and other high-ranking officers with Wagner affiliations and sympathies are less likely to support Wagner given the public statement from a high-profile senior officer like Surovikin.
Prigozhin’s apparent rebellion 'unlikely to succeed', says ISW
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s apparent armed rebellion against the leadership of the Russian ministry of defence is “unlikely to succeed” and he may have “wildly miscalculated”, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has said in its latest analysis of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Wagner leader may have thought he would have the backing of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the US thinktank wrote, but that was “extraordinarily unlikely” considering Putin had recently aligned himself more firmly with the Russian defence ministry.
Another possibility was that Prizgozhin’s actions and statements were “a rhetorical overreach in his ongoing dispute with the MoD and his campaign to retain his wavering influence within the Russian information space following the culmination of Wagner’s Bakhmut effort”, it said.
However, this contingency is also highly unlikely, as initial indicators of actual Wagner movements are observable and the Kremlin is not responding to Prigozhin’s statements as only rhetoric.
The government of Russia’s Voronezh region has urged residents to avoid the M-4 north-south motorway connecting Moscow to southern regions because a military convoy was on the move there, Reuters reports.
The Wagner mercenary chief earlier suggested he planned to oust Russia’s military leadership.
Authorities in the western Russian region of Voronezh have urged residents to avoid the M-4 motorway leading to Moscow, Reuters has snapped.
The regional government said the situation was under control and measures were being taken to ensure public safety.
Blasts reported in Kyiv and Kharkiv
Ukrainian authorities reported explosions in the capital, Kyiv, and the eastern city of Kharkiv early on Saturday, with the country going on high alert in the face of new Russian missile strikes.
“Explosions are heard in Kharkiv,” mayor Igor Terekhov wrote on social media, while authorities in Kyiv said air defence systems were operating.
Agence France-Presse also reports that Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said there were explosions in the city’s western Solomiansky district.
“Fragments of a rocket hit a parking lot,” he wrote on social media, adding that emergency services were on the scene.
Separately, the Ukrainian air force reported missiles heading in the direction of the northern regions of Sumy and Poltava and the central city of Dnipro.
Summary
Here’s an overview of all the latest major developments:
The FSB said Prigozhin’s statements and actions were “in fact a call to start an armed civil conflict on the territory of the Russian Federation and a stab in the back to Russian servicemen fighting pro-fascist Ukrainian forces”. It urged Wagner fighters “not to make irreparable mistakes, to stop any forceful actions against the Russian people, not to carry out the criminal and treacherous orders of Prigozhin, and to take measures to detain him”.
Early on Saturday, Prigozhin released another voice message in which he claimed, without offering any evidence, that his forces had left Ukraine and were entering the southern Russian city of Rostov. “Right now we have crossed all the border points … The border guards greeted us and hugged our fighters. Now we are entering Rostov,” he said. “If anyone gets in our way, we will destroy everything … We extend our hand to everyone. We move forward, we are going all the way!”
Prigozhin claimed in an audio message that Wagner shot down a Russian helicopter that opened fire on the convoy near Rostov. He did not provide evidence.
Security measures have been strengthened in Moscow, with critical facilities taken under increased protection, Russian state news agency Tass reported, citing law enforcement agencies. Unconfirmed footage also appeared to show military vehicles on the streets of the Russian capital.
Emergency protocols were also implemented in the city of Rostov, involving the full mobilisation of the local security services, according to several Telegram channels linked to security service. Pictures published by local media showed armour vehicles appearing on the streets. Baza, a Telegram channel linked to Russian security services, reported that helicopters were seen flying over Rostov.
Gen Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russia’s Ukraine campaign, released a video address ordering the mercenaries to remain loyal to Putin. “I urge you to stop,” said Surovikin, who was previously understood to be close to Prigozhin. “The enemy is just waiting for the internal political situation to worsen in our country.”
Russian president Vladimir Putin was getting round-the-clock updates from all relevant state security agencies on the measures being taken to thwart an attempted armed mutiny, Tass reported. “All necessary measures are being taken,” Russian state media quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying.
Earlier on Friday, Prigozhin had accused Moscow’s leadership of lying to the public about the justifications for invading Ukraine. He dismissed Moscow’s claims that Kyiv was planning to launch an offensive on the Russian-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine in February 2022, saying: “The ministry of defence is trying to deceive the public and the president and spin the story that there was insane levels of aggression from the Ukrainian side and that they were going to attack us together with the whole Nato block.”
The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces has confirmed for the first time that the main force of his offensive reserve is yet to be committed into battle with Russia, saying: “Everything is still ahead.” In an exclusive interview with the Guardian from a military base in east Ukraine, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said the Russian general staff had anticipated where Ukraine’s forces were at their most dangerous but issued a warning to the Kremlin that he was hunting down the lethal weakness in their lines.
Prigozhin has claimed his Wagner forces left Ukraine and were entering the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.
He made the claim in a voice message early on Saturday, without offering evidence.
Map of Ukraine and Russia including Rostov-on-DonPrigozhin claims his forces have downed Russian helicopter
Prigozhin claimed in an audio message that Wagner shot down a Russian helicopter that opened fire on the convoy near the southern city of Rostov.
He did not provide evidence to support the claim.
Earlier, locals in Rostov reported that military helicopters were flying over the city.
Russian governor urges people to stay indoors
The governor of Russia’s southern Rostov region, Vasily Golubev, has told its citizens to remain calm and stay indoors, Reuters reports.
