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Wagner Group rebellion
Part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Date 23 June 2023 – present (2023-06-23 – present) (1 year, 6 months, 2 weeks and 2 days) Location Russia Status Ongoing
Belligerents
File:Эмблема ЧВК Вагнер.svg Wagner Group	Ministry of Defence Federal Security Service
Commanders and leaders
File:Эмблема ЧВК Вагнер.svg Yevgeny Prigozhin File:Эмблема ЧВК Вагнер.svg Dmitry Utkin File:Эмблема ЧВК Вагнер.svg Andrei Troshev	Sergei Shoigu Valery Gerasimov Alexander Bortnikov
Strength
25,000 (according to Prigozhin)	Unknown
Casualties and losses
Unknown	One helicopter shot down (Wagner claim)

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On 23 June 2023, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin alleged that soldiers of the Russian Ministry of Defense were shelling his positions. Prigozhin promised to take revenge on the leadership of the Ministry of Defense. Prigozhin said the "evil" in the military leadership must be stopped and vowed to "March for Justice". He also dismissed justification for the Russian invasion of Ukraine saying that Ukraine and NATO were not planning an attack on Donbas and Crimea in 2022, blamed the minister of defence, Sergei Shoigu, for Russia's battlefield failures and deaths, stated Russia’s war in Ukraine was intended to benefit elites and accused Russia's military of a rocket attack against the Wagner Group, among other serious accusations and threats against the Russian regime that prompted the Federal Security Service (FSB) to open a criminal case against him. Prigozhin pulled his 25,000-strong militia back from Ukraine and into Russia’s Rostov-on-Don, and vowed: “If anyone gets in our way, we will destroy everything!”

Background

Wagner Group and Yevgeny Prigozhin

Yevgeny Prigozhin is a confidant of Russian president Vladimir Putin. In 2014, he founded the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company. Against the background of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there was a sharp rise in the influence of Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner Group. The estimated number of Wagnerites grew from "several thousand" fighters in 2017–2018 to 50,000 fighters by January 2023, according to Western intelligence estimates.

Activities in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

According to Meduza, on the eve of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin developed tense relations with the Russian leadership, coming into conflict with both the Russian Defense Ministry and the Presidential Administration of Russia. Prigozhin criticized Sergei Shoigu for the actions of the Russian army in Syria, saying that the Russian military was operating there with "outdated methods." In turn, Shoigu did not like the provision of food for the Russian army by Prigozhin's companies.

The growth of the influence of Wagner Group was due to the failure of the initial plans of the Russian leadership to quickly defeat Ukraine. In the first months of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian army suffered significant losses, but Putin delayed the announcement of mobilization for a long time. Under such conditions, the Russian authorities began to actively recruit mercenaries to participate in hostilities in Ukraine. Prigozhin received significant resources, including his own aviation, and the right to recruit Russian prisoners into PMC Wagner. PMC Wagner was seen as turning into a private army of Prigozhin, operating outside Russian legislation and outside the military hierarchy of the Russian Federation. The Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian General Staff were unhappy with this situation and began trying to limit Prigozhin's growing influence. Prigozhin began to publicly criticize the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation in harsh terms. On 5 June, as tensions escalated, Prigozhin released a video on his social media channels alleging to show a captured Russian colonel admitting to have ordered his troops to fire on Wagner troops, allegedly while drunk.

Prigozhin's criticism of Russia's elite

Prigozhin frequently criticized the Russian military leadership, saying that their efforts were not enough to win the war in Ukraine. In one of his statements, Prigozhin has said that Russia should introduce martial law, announce new waves of mobilisation, as well as "get everyone we can producing ammunition" and "close borders like North Korea" to win the war and "survive as a nation". He criticized Shoigu's children for "spending money aimlessly" while "ordinary people's children are coming back in zinc , torn to pieces" because of war. He called this "split in society" between the elite and the ordinary people as potentially leading to the events similar to the 1917 Russian Revolution, with "soldiers and their loved ones" rising up. Prigozhin called Russians who left the country during the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war to avoid "the country's recent problems" as "traitors". He criticized the elite which "sends their children abroad on their business jets in the so-called neutral countries" to avoid harsh realities faced by the Russian population because of the war. Prigozhin attacked Russian oligarchs, who he accused of destroying the Soviet Union and taking control over Russia's wealth, while not caring about fighting for Russia's interests.

Chronology

23 June 2023

On 23 June 2023, a video was circulated in Telegram channels associated with PMC Wagner, which, according to Prigozhin, had been recorded at a Wagner Group mercenary camp that had been attacked by a missile. Bellingcat journalist Arik Toler noted that the location of the alleged strike coincides with previously filmed videos of war correspondent Alexander Simonov, who visited the camp. That evening, Prigozhin announced the beginning of an armed conflict with the Ministry of Defense. The message appeared in the Telegram channel of his press service. Prigozhin urged anyone who wanted to join the conflict against the Ministry of Defense to do so; accused Shoigu of using artillery and helicopters to destroy PMC Wagner, and alleged that Shoigu had "cowardly fled from Rostov-on-Don at nine in the evening". The Russian Defense Ministry denied accusations of attacking the rear camps of PMC Wagner. After that, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation reported that a case had been initiated against Prigozhin under Article 279 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (armed rebellion). Generals Sergey Surovikin and Vladimir Alekseev appealed to the Wagner PMC fighters, urging them to "stop".

Russia's state-run First Channel announced an "emergency newscast", in which host Ekaterina Andreeva claimed that Prigozhin’s statements regarding alleged attacks by the forces of the Ministry of Defence on PMC Wagner's positions were fake and that Putin had been informed of the ongoing situation.

In response to Prigozhin's statements, Russia’s military and its national guard deployed armored vehicles in both Moscow and Rostov-on-Don; Rostov-on-Don is near the frontlines in Ukrainian where PMC Wagner troops had been operating, and is also where Prigozhin had claimed that PMC Wagner troops were headed.

During the night from 23 to 24 June, an audio recording was released on behalf of Prigozhin, who was claiming that PMC Wagner was entering Rostov-on-Don and called forces of Ministry of Defence not to oppose his army.

Prigozhin claimed in another audio recording on 23 June that the head of the General Staff of Russian military had ordered the country’s air force to open fire on PMC Wagner's columns moving among civilian vehicles, accusing the General Staff of disregarding lives of innocent people, "just as they have been killing their own population for a year and half instead of fighting the enemy". He also claimed that some pilots refused to carry out the General Staff's orders, and thanked them.

Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov described the ongoing situation as an "attempted mutiny" and stated that the Russia's military agencies were day and night reporting on Putin's orders to him about the recent events.

Another audio recording was released on behalf of Prigozhin, accusing Valery Gerasimov and Sergei Shoigu of "launching attacks on residential blocks" and "annihilating hundred of thousands Russian soldiers" during the Russia-Ukraine war. Several Telegram channels released videos of columns moving in the streets, allegedly belonging to PMC Wagner.

Amid Prigozhin's statements, Russia blocked Google News.

24 June 2023

In a new audio message released on behalf of Prigozhin, he claimed that the Wagner PMC fighters shot down a military helicopter that opened fire on a convoy, although no video evidence is available yet.

Unconfirmed footage allegedly showed clashes occuring in Rostov-on-Don between Wagner and military forces.

On 24 June 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin was charged by the Russian government with organizing an armed uprising after he threatened to attack Russian forces in answer to an air strike on his paramilitary soldiers. Russian security forces accused the founder of the Wagner mercenary group of launching a coup attempt as he pledged a "march of justice" against the Russian army. Prigozhin posted a voice memo claiming that Wagner had left Ukraine and was advancing on the Russian city of Rostov. Senior Russian generals urged Wagner's fighters to withdraw. Meanwhile Russia's national security service, FSB, said it had filed criminal charges against Prigozhin and moved to arrest him.

International reactions

Russian Volunteer Corps

On 23 June, Russian Volunteer Corps leader Denis Kapustin praised Prigozhin, stating, "Although we stand on opposite sides of the barricades and have a different point of view on the future of the Russian Federation, I can quite call him a patriot of Russia, without sarcasm or irony."

United States

On 23 June (24 June in Moscow), the United States National Security Council spokesman Adam Hodge stated that the United States had been following the events in Russia and "consulting with allies and partners on these developments".

See also

• 1773-1775 Pugachev's Rebellion
• 1917 Kornilov affair
• Kronstadt rebellion
• 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt

References

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27. ^ "Wagner Chief Claims His Forces Downed Russian Military Helicopter". Barrons.com. 24 June 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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32. Kapustin, Denis (23 June 2023). "Заявление Командира РДК о происходящих событиях в военном руководстве РФ" [Statement by the Commander of the RDK on the ongoing events in the military leadership of the Russian Federation]. Telegram (in Russian).

• Current events from June 2023
• 2020s coups d'état and coup attempts
• 2023 in Russia
• Attempted coups in Russia
• Coup d'état attempts in Europe
• June 2023 events in Europe
• Mutinies
• Wagner Group