Russian leaders have accused Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, of an attempted coup, and are calling for his arrest. President Vladimir Putin accused the mercenary chief of “treason” and attempted “armed coup” against the Russian army.
In an extraordinary announcement on Friday night, Yevgeny Prigozhin called for an uprising against Russia’s military leaders after a Russian general ordered an airstrike on his fighters in Ukraine and claimed a “huge number” had been killed, though he provided no evidence.
The feud between Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russia’s defence ministry “represents the most significant challenge to the Russian state in recent times,” according to an intelligence briefing from the U.K.’s defence ministry. It added that the feud between the mercenary group and the Russian ministry of defence had “escalated into outright military confrontation.”
In a Telegram message, Prigozhin promised to “go to the end” to stop the Russian leadership’s “evil”. More than 30,000 Wagner fighters, often regarded as Putin’s de facto private army, have been killed or injured since the invasion of Ukraine began, according to US officials.
Prigozhin said he had 25,000 fighters ready to battle the Russian army and called on regular Russian soldiers, including the National Guard, to join his coup attempt. His comments come after Igor Girkin, a former commander of separatist militants in east Ukraine, accused him of stirring unrest in a video.
Girkin said insults Prigozhin has made about top Russian officials in expletive-filled videos indicate he is planning to seize power.
However, the Wagner chief, known as “Putin’s chef”, argued that his Wagner army is not large enough to start a mutiny, a report by Washington, DC, think tank The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said.
This comes after Russia last week declared victory in the battle for Bakhmut, and Prigozhin said his forces would be pulling back from the city by the end of June.