His military group HAS traveled more than 400 miles claiming control of the road and territory along the way….
This while Russian troop’s deal with the Ukraine conflict and are ordered to stop Prigozhin’s advances. towards the Russian capital….
In Moscow, and in two other regions between the capital and Rostov-on-Don, the authorities announced a “counterterrorist operation regime,” expanding the powers of the local law enforcement.
Along that corridor, highways were blocked and public transportation also faced disruptions in some places. The price of airline tickets from Moscow to nearby capitals that Russians can enter without a visa skyrocketed.
In Rostov, where there was some anticipation that Russian government forces might besiege the city to bottle up Mr. Prigozhin’s forces, some residents lined up to purchase gasoline and food, according to 161.ru, a local online news outlet. Some supermarkets took measures like limiting the amount of essential goods — including salt, sugar and flour — that a customer could purchase.
People snapped pictures of Wagner’s tanks, or argued with its fighters. “What is happening,” wondered Irina Alenina, a resident of Rostov-on-Don, in a local news group on Vkontakte, a social messaging app. “A civil war is starting, or something like that,” responded Aleksandr Salazov.
State-run television and newspapers were reporting the events in real time, forgoing their previous tradition of putting the ballet “Swan Lake” on an endless loop until the crisis of the moment had passed.
Some Russians remembered similar crises from the past, like the periodic eruptions that marked the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s….
The Russian response…
President Vladimir V. Putin mobilized Russian troops on Saturday to put down what he called an armed rebellion by the mercenary leader Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, whose forces had claimed control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and were seen moving north along a highway toward Moscow.
As security forces were scrambled in southwestern Russia and Moscow, military convoys believed to belong to Mr. Prigozhin’s Wagner forces were seen in the town of Elets, about 250 miles from the capital, according to video posted to social media on Saturday and verified by The New York Times. The armored convoys had traveled from Rostov, and governors of regions along Russia’s major M-4 highway to Moscow urged residents to stay away from the corridor. Videos showed signs of active fighting along the highway.
In a brief address to the nation on Saturday morning, Mr. Putin called Mr. Prigozhin a traitor who had delivered “a stab in the back of our country and our people.” He said that military and civilian functions had “essentially been blocked” in Rostov, an important military hub for Russia’s war in Ukraine, an implicit acknowledgment of some success by Mr. Prigozhin, an erstwhile Putin ally whose forces have fought alongside the Russian Army in Ukraine.
The confrontation marked the most dramatic threat to the Russian president’s power since he took over leadership in 1999, and came at a pivotal moment in Russia’s war in Ukraine, where Kyiv’s forces have begun a counteroffensive to take back territory. Moscow declared a “counterterrorist operation regime,” giving the authorities expanded legal powers, even as pro-war Russian activists expressed alarm that the uprising could threaten Moscow’s front lines in Ukraine….
image…Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty
The Wagner troops are 250 or so miles from Moscow and on the move…..
The Wagner leader going to Belarus is NOT good for the Russian military…..
They actually did better in Bakhmut….
What is the story with the Wagner troops?
Do they take over Belarus?