Russia Wagner Mutiny | Updates & Discussions

[StormBreaker]

TF Is happening in Russia ?

 

[F-22Raptor]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1672356994810822659

 

[That Guy]

Post updates about the Wagner - Russia - RFL/RCV conflict here please.

Wagner mercenary chief calls for armed rebellion against Russian military leadership​

The FSB called on Wagner fighters not to follow Prigozhin’s orders.

ABC News​

Wagner mercenary chief calls for armed rebellion against Russian military leadership​

The FSB called on Wagner fighters not to follow Prigozhin’s orders.
ByPatrick Reevell
June 23, 2023, 7:20 PM

2:37

Inside the hospital answering the calls from the Ukraine frontlines
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The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group appears to be threatening an armed rebellion against Russia's military leadership, after accusing it of deliberately shelling his forces on Friday.
Wagner's founder Yevgeny Prigozhin in an audio message on Friday claimed his forces would now punish Russia's defense minister and chief of general staff, telling other units to stand down and not offer resistance.
"There are 25,000 of us and we are coming to sort things out. ... Those who want to join us, it's time to finish with this mess," Prigozhin said.

Founder of Wagner private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin speaks with servicemen during w...Show more
Press Service of "Concord" via Reuters
Prigozhin also accused defense minister Sergey Shoigu of "cowardly fleeing" from Rostov in southern Russia and ordering an attack on Wagner forces.

MORE: Russian defects from Wagner mercenary group, says it's committing war crimes in Ukraine​

Prigozhin published a shaky video on Friday that showed a shattered group of trees and a burning trench, claiming it was a Wagner camp shelled by Russian troops and alleging many Wagner troops were killed.
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Russia's defense ministry has already denounced the video, calling it an "information provocation."
A Kremlin spokesperson said Russian President Vladimir Putin is aware of the video.
"President Putin has been informed of all the events around Prigozhin. Necessary measures are being taken," the spokesperson said.
Russia's FSB has issued a statement accusing Prigohzin of calling for "the start of an armed civil conflict" in Russia.
The FSB called on Wagner fighters not to follow Prigozhin's orders and to assist in his arrest.

Prigozhin has denied this is a "military coup" calling it a "march for justice."
"They neglect the lives of soldiers, they forgot the word 'justice,' and we will return it," Prigozhin said in the video. "Therefore, those who destroyed our guys today, and tens of thousands of lives of Russian soldiers, will be punished."
White House National Security Council spokesperson Adam Hodge, released a statement that said the counsel is "monitoring the situation and will be consulting with allies and partners on these developments."
Gen. Sergey Surovikin, a senior Russian general who has been linked with Prigozhin, gave a video address calling on Wagner fighters to stop their rebellion and turn back.
Surovikin was appointed the top commander of Russia's 'special military operation' in Ukraine between last September and January. He was removed in January and replaced by Russia's chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov, whom Prigozhin is trying to topple.
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This comes hours after Prigozhin launched an extraordinary verbal attack on Russia's military leadership, and saying the invasion of Ukraine was based on lies.

Wagner chief says Russian invasion based on lies​

The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said the Kremlin's justifications for its invasion of Ukraine are based on lies, in another extraordinary attack on the country's military and political leadership.
Prigozhin, a key ally of Putin, in a video posted Friday, contradicted the public explanations for the war, including the central claim made by Putin that the 2022 invasion was necessary to prevent an attack from Ukraine.
Since launching the war, Putin has painted it as a defensive operation to protect Russia. He's claimed it was needed to stop imminent large-scale attacks from Ukraine on largely Russian-speaking eastern regions in Donbas that Russia has occupied since 2014.

MORE: Russian defects from Wagner mercenary group, says it's committing war crimes in Ukraine​

Founder of Wagner private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves a cemetery before the fun...Show more
Yulia Morozova/Reuters, File
But in his video address, Prigozhin, whose fighters have played a leading role in the war, said that was not true and there had been no imminent risk of attack from Ukraine.
"The ministry of defense now is trying to deceive society, the president, and tell a story there was insane aggression from Ukraine and that they intended to attack us with the whole NATO bloc," Prigozhin said.
"The Special Military Operation that began on Feb. 24 was started for completely different reasons," he said.

MORE: What to know about the Wagner group, a 'brutal' Russian military group fighting in Ukraine​

Prigozhin has been in a public feud with Russia's defense ministry and its head Sergey Shoigu for months, blaming them for Russia's disastrous prosecution of the war. As Russia has faced deepening setbacks in Ukraine, he has become an unexpected, prominent critic of Russia's leadership, using social media to post almost daily video updates excoriating it as incompetent, but stopping short of directly criticizing Putin.
Prigozhin also said in Friday's video that the two goals Putin announced at the start of the war— the "demilitarization" and "de-Nazification" of Ukraine—were "pretty stories."
Instead, he blamed Shoigu, the defense ministry and a "clan of oligarchs" for starting the war. He accused Shoigu of seeking glory and wanting "to rob" Ukraine and divide up its assets.
Prigozhin's attacks are extraordinary in Russia, where public criticism of the authorities risks harsh punishment. Since the war began last year, criticism of the military leadership has become a criminal offense.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner Group military company, addresses Ukrainian President V...Show more
Prigozhin Press Service via AP, File
That has led to speculation among experts about why Prigozhin is enjoying such license. Some observers have suggested Prigozhin might be speaking with the tacit approval of the Kremlin, which may be looking to shift blame for the war from Putin by scapegoating other figures such as Shoigu.
Prigozhin did not directly attack Putin in the video, instead claiming the president was being deceived by his generals and other figures around him. In reality though, Putin—not Shoigu—has taken the lead in making the claims around Donbas and de-Nazification the central justifications of the war, reciting them in his speech declaring his "Special Military Operation."
The implicit picture Prigozhin gave of Putin as weak and out of touch was also remarkable, implying he was manipulated by a clan of wealthy businessmen around him and lied to by his military. The war, as described by Prigozhin, was not about protecting Russia or resisting NATO expansion, but instead greed.
"The war was needed by oligarchs," Prigozhin said. "It was needed by that clan that today practically rule Russia." He added Russia's "sacred war" had "turned into a racket."

MORE: 2,000 trauma operations in a year: Inside Ukraine's leading battlefield hospital​

Prigozhin lambasted Russia's military leadership for the huge casualties its troops have suffered. He accused Shoigu of hollowing out the armed forces under Putin through corruption and cronyism, crippling its ability to fight effectively and then catastrophically botching the invasion after believing it would be an easy victory.
"There is a total absence of management," Prigozhin said, calling Shoigu a "weak grandfather."
"Someone should answer for the lives of those soldiers," Prigozhin said in Friday's video.
Prigozhin this week has accused the defense ministry of once again presenting a falsely upbeat picture of how Russia is fending off Ukraine's ongoing counteroffensive in southern Ukraine. Russia's military has claimed to have largely stymied the counteroffensive and inflicted heavy losses on Ukraine.
Putin himself has trumpeted those alleged successes, repeating claims Ukraine has suffered heavy losses of Western equipment.

MORE: Russian army officer says he saw Ukrainian POWs tortured​

But Prigozhin has said in Russia's position is far more difficult, as Ukraine presses attacks at two points on the Zaporizhzhia front in the south, and Moscow is at risk of another significant defeat.
"On the ground now, today, the Russian army is retreating on the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions," Prigozhin said in Friday's video. He added that Ukrainian forces were advancing "deeper and deeper and deeper into our defenses" around Bakhmut, which his Wagner forces helped capture weeks ago.
"The leadership of the ministry of defense is thoroughly deceiving the president, and the president is receiving reports that don't correspond with reality in any way," Prigozhin said.
"Two agendas are forming—one on the ground, the other on the president's table," he said.

Wagner mercenary chief calls for armed rebellion against Russian military leadership

Russia's Wagner mercenary group founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has said the Kremlin's justifications for invading Ukraine were based on lies.

abcnews.go.com

@waz @Deino @LeGenD @mmr @F-22Raptor @reflecthofgeismar @Reashot Xigwin @CIA Mole @Ali_Baba
@PakFactor

 

[Tamerlane]

Wagner will be obliterated.

If any of you listened to Putin’s speech you will know that he believes that losing in Ukraine means the end of Russia.

Putin will not go down without using every weapon at his disposal, including nuclear weapons.

 

[Ali_Baba]

The Chechens have been given a lot of weapons and training recently …. Wonder if that is going to blow up in Putin face too? And as for Georgia ? They must be sensing an opportunity too?

 

[LeGenD]

Two threads were opened on this topic by two different members. Both are merged.

 

[Vanguard One]

The owner of the Wagner private military contractor escalated his direct challenge to the Kremlin on Friday, calling for an armed rebellion aimed at ousting Russia’s defence minister.

The security services reacted immediately by opening a criminal investigation into Yevgeny Prigozhin and calling for his arrest.

Prigozhin posted a series of angry video and audio recordings in which he accused Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu of ordering a rocket strike on Wagner's field camps in Ukraine, where his troops are fighting on behalf of Russia.

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin furthered his dispute with Russian military leaders on June 23. (CNN)

Prigozhin said his troops would now punish Shoigu in an armed rebellion and urged the army not to offer resistance.

“This is not a military coup, but a march of justice,” Prigozhin declared.

The National Anti-Terrorism Committee, which is part of the Federal Security Services, or FSB, said he would be investigated on charges of calling for an armed rebellion.

The FSB urged Wagner's contract soldiers to arrest Prigozhin and refuse to follow his “criminal and treacherous orders.”

It called his statements a “stab in the back to Russian troops” and said they amounted to fomenting an armed conflict in Russia.

Prigozhin has often been with his troops near the frontline in Ukraine, but his whereabouts on Friday were unclear.

In a sign of how seriously the Kremlin was taking the threat, riot police and the National Guard have been scrambled to tighten security at key facilities in Moscow, including government agencies and transport infrastructure, the state news agency Tass reported.

Russia’s chief prosecutor said the criminal investigation was justified and that an armed rebellion charge carries a penalty of up to 20 years imprisonment.

President Vladimir Putin has been informed about the situation and “all the necessary measures were being taken, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Emergency workers extinguish a fire after missiles hit a multi-story apartment building in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Tuesday, June 13, 2023. (Dnipro Regional Administration via AP)

Wagner's forces have played a crucial role in Russia's war in Ukraine, succeeding in taking the city where the bloodiest and longest battles have taken place, Bakhmut.

Prigozhin has frequently criticised Russia's military brass, accusing it of incompetence and of starving his troops of weapons and ammunition, but his accusations and calls for armed rebellion Friday were more direct challenge.

The Russian Defence Ministry required all military contractors to sign contracts with it before July 1, but Prigozhin, whose feud with the Defence Ministry dates back years, refused to comply.

In a statement issued late Friday, he said he was ready to find a compromise with the Defence Ministry, but “they have treacherously cheated us.”

“Today they carried out a rocket strike on our rear camps, and a huge number of our comrades got killed,” he said. The Defence Ministry denied attacking the Wagner camps.

Prigozhin claimed that Shoigu went to the Russian military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don personally to direct the strike on Wagner and then “cowardly” fled.

“This scum will be stopped,” he said, in a reference to Shoigu.

“The evil embodied by the country’s military leadership must be stopped,” he shouted, urging the army not to offer any resistance to Wagner as it moves to “restore justice.”

Security also was heightened in Rostov-on-Don, Tass reported. Its correspondent said military and law enforcement personnel were seen on the streets, with at least one armoured personnel carrier and aerial patrols.

Colonel General Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of the Russian group of forces fighting in Ukraine, urged the Wagner forces to stop any move against the army, saying it would play into the hands of Russia's enemies, who are "waiting to see the exacerbation of our domestic political situation.”

Another top military officer, Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, denounced Prigozhin’s move as “madness” and threatened to unleash a civil war in Russia.

“It’s a stab in the back to the country and the president,” he said.

“It’s impossible to imagine a stronger blow to the image of Russia and its armed forces. Such a provocation could only be staged by enemies of Russia.”

The Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement that the Ukrainian military was concentrating troops to launch an attack around Bakhmut to take advantage of “Prigozhin’s provocation.”

Streets are flooded in Kherson, Ukraine, Wednesday, June 7, 2023 after the Kakhovka dam was blown up. (AP Photo/Libkos) (AP)

It said Russian artillery and warplanes were firing on Ukrainian forces as they prepared to start an offensive in the area.

In other developments in the Ukraine, war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on other countries to heed warnings that Russia may be planning to attack an occupied nuclear power plant to cause a radiation disaster.

Members of his government briefed international representatives on the possible threat to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, whose six reactors have been shut down for months. Zelenskyy said he expected other nations to “give appropriate signals and exert pressure” on Moscow.

The Kremlin’s spokesman has denied the threat to the plant is coming from Russian forces.

The potential for a life-threatening release of radiation has been a concern since Russian troops invaded Ukraine last year and seized the plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power station.

The head of the UN’s atomic energy agency spent months trying to negotiate the establishment of a safety perimeter to protect the facility as nearby areas came under repeated shelling, but he has been unsuccessful.

The International Atomic Energy Agency noted Thursday that “the military situation has become increasingly tense” while a Ukrainian counteroffensive that got underway this month unfolds in Zaporizhzhia province, where the namesake plant is located, and in an adjacent part of Donetsk province.

Although the last of the plant’s six reactors was shut down last fall to reduce the risk of a meltdown, experts have warned that a radiation release could still happen if the system that keeps the reactors’ cores and spent nuclear fuel cool loses power or water.

During months of fighting, Russia and Ukraine have traded blame over which side was increasing the threat to the plant.

On Friday, IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi met with the head of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom in the Kaliningrad exclave of Russia to discuss the conditions at the plant.

Rosatom director Alexey Likachev and other officials “emphasized that they now expect specific steps” from the UN agency to prevent Ukrainian attacks on the plant and its adjacent territory, said a statement from the Russian corporation, whose divisions build and operate nuclear power plants.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian officials accused Russia of mining the plant’s cooling system, already under threat from a dam collapse earlier this week that drew down water in a reservoir that the power station uses.

Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said Friday that Russia has beefed up its defence forces in southern Ukraine in response to the early counteroffensive and intensified its efforts to take more ground in the east.

Asked if the Ukrainian military’s initial attacks set the stage for a larger assault, Maliar told Ukrainian television: “We are yet to see the main events, and the main blow. And indeed, a part of reserves will be used later.”

Ukrainian forces so far have made only incremental gains in Zaporizhzhia province, one of four regions that Putin illegally annexed last year.
Putin has pledged to defend the regions as Russian territory.

Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine is fighting to force Russian troops out of those regions, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014 and is using as a staging and supply route in the 16-month-old war.

If the counteroffensive breaks the Russian defences in the south, Ukrainian forces could attempt to reach a pair of occupied port cities on the Sea of Azov and break Russia’s land bridge to Crimea.

Fears civil war brewing in Russia after calls for rebellion against Russian defence chief

www.9news.com.au

 

[CIA Mole]

Wagner will be obliterated.

If any of you listened to Putin’s speech you will know that he believes that losing in Ukraine means the end of Russia.

Putin will not go down without using every weapon at his disposal, including nuclear weapons.

at this point i highly doubt his generals will let him use the nuclear

 

[That Guy]

at this point i highly doubt his generals will let him use the nuclear

They're greedy and corrupt, not stupid.

 

[CIA Mole]

They're greedy and corrupt, not stupid.

ruling by fear doesnt beget true loyalty

 

[That Guy]

A general overview.

 

[StormBreaker]

An optimistic part of me believes that it is a Setup by Putin himself to identify the moles, Top to down. His silence and lack of response towards parliament is a supporting argument.

A Possible cleansing ?

 

[Puffin]

A situation pregnant with possibilities.

My feeling is that this will somehow fizzle out with some dirty compromise. Both parties are without morals or ethics and work purely to keep what they have.

However there is no doubt that Russian morale will be severely dented whatever the conclusion of this action.

It is also, however, far too early to conclude a collapse of Russian fighting ability.

 

[That Guy]

An optimistic part of me believes that it is a Setup by Putin himself to identify the moles, Top to down. His silence and lack of response towards parliament is a supporting argument.

A Possible cleansing ?

On the other hand, when has parliament ever mattered to Putin? Almost all of them are a part of United Russia, meaning they're all Yes-men.

You could be right on the cleansing though. Putin seems to be strangely quiet, so it could that he's either hiding, or he's behind this entire situation.

 

[LeGenD]

Rumors on reddit that a Russian military base is struck. Russia has shut down local internet services.