26 June, 2024. Wagner Leader Yevgeny Prigozhin confirmed that the Wagner troops are backing away from their march towards Moscow and returning to their field camps as agreed after a deal was made. This was confirmed by an Audio Message released by the Wagner groups press department. The leader, Prigozhin said that they are backing their troops away to avoid possible bloodshed. It is said that, the mercenary troops were about 200 Kilometres away from Moscow before announcing this retreat.
It has also been confirmed that the Wagner troops have left the headquarters in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don as several armed vehicles and vehicles containing military equipment were seen to leave the site. Prigozhin’s troops had taken over this military headquarters without firing a single shot, as said by Prigozhin.
A deal was brokered by the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko with Prigozhin. Lukashenko had offered to act as a mediator with the agreement of Putin as Prigozhin was an acquaintance of Lukashenko for a very long time.
According to the deal, Prigozhin is going to move to Belarus, along with that, the Wagner troops would not be prosecuted for joining this rebellion, and an existing criminal case against Wagner leader Prigozhin is also going to be dropped. These were all confirmed by the Kremlin saying that Russia respects the role of this group in the war. However, its been speculated that further agreements have been made behind closed doors with Prigozhin as he was said to be at a point of advantage with the current situation and placement of his troops and the unexpected factor of it all.
The Wagner Group is a mercenary group with over 50 thousand soldiers in it which worked along Russia and had contribution through their participation in the Ukraine war. The leader of this group Yevgeny Prigozhin was said to be a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Earlier, Yevgeny Prigozhin started his march towards Moscow with the goal to take down Russia’s top Military leadership. As he alleged that the top military leadership had authorized missile attack on the Wagner Base in Ukraine killing thousands of Wagner soldiers. The two most notable targets were the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General of Russian forces in Ukraine Gerasimov. Prigozhin also threatened through an audio message that they would destroy anything that stands on their path.
In response to this, Moscow was placed in a counterterrorism state of emergency. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that this was an armed mutiny and a stab in the back. He also mentioned that this was treason and there would be actions taken against them. The Kremlin had also offered the Mercenary group total amnesty if they stood down. But in response to Putin’s statement that was televised, Prigozhin said that Russia will soon have a new President. They also stated that the Civil war had begun. Following this, Russia had started to evacuate many of its High Ranked government officials from the Capital. However it was confirmed that Putin still remained in Kremlin.
