2023-06-25 13:52:00
The fighters of the Wagner group are gradually withdrawing this Sunday, after their abortive rebellion on Saturday against Vladimir Putin.
By JW with AFP A tank of Wagner fighters, Saturday June 24, 2023 in the streets of Rostov-on-Don, Russia. © ARKADY BUDNITSKY / ANADOLU AGENCY / Anadolu Agency via AFP Published on 06/25/2023 at 1:52 p.m.
After their forced withdrawal, the troops of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner left the Lipetsk region, south of Moscow, on Sunday June 25, where they had entered on Saturday during their rebel expedition to the Russian capital, local authorities said. Sign that the crisis is fading.
“The units of the paramilitary group Wagner, which stopped yesterday in the Lipetsk region, left the territory,” the press service of the regional authorities said on Telegram. The regional capital of Lipetsk is located 400 km from Moscow.
Overall, the group is gradually withdrawing this Sunday after the aborted coup by their leader Evguéni Prigojine, under an agreement with Vladimir Putin who is emerging weakened from this unprecedented crisis. Wagner’s fighters thus left the Voronezh region, located, like that of Lipetsk, south of Moscow, according to local authorities. These territories were stages in their attempt to reach the capital.
READ ALSOWagner’s Rebellion: 5 things to know about the Prigozhin OffensiveYevgeny Prigojine must now leave for Belarus, the Russian presidency announced on Saturday evening, without it being known, on Sunday, when this exile-like departure is planned, or where the tempestuous boss of Wagner is.
A “bloodbath” avoided
During a 24-hour spree that took his militias less than 400 km from Moscow, or even 200 according to him, he shook the Kremlin before turning around and ordering his men to return to their bases, after mediation by the Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, the Kremlin’s only European ally.
The day before, they had left the military HQ which they had seized in Rostov (southwest), the nerve center of operations in Ukraine, signaling the end of this mutiny in order to avoid “a bloodbath”, according to the words by Yevgeny Prigozhin. However, in the Russian capital as in its region, the “anti-terrorist operation regime”, which gives increased powers to the police, remains in force on Sunday.
Large police patrols were deployed along the road leading to the exit of Moscow in the south of the capital, noted an AFP journalist. Monday will be a non-working day in Moscow. This is where Wagner’s men and their tanks could have arrived, had they continued their march to obtain the heads of the Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, and that of the Chief of Staff, Valery Gerasimov, accused of having sacrificed for nothing tens of thousands of men in Ukraine.
READ ALSOWagner’s Rebellion: What is Wagner, Moscow’s Shadow Army?
“No one will persecute (the fighters), given their merits at the front”
Announcing the agreement reached with the one who, a few hours earlier, had promised “to liberate the Russian people”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had welcomed “a resolution without new losses” of the crisis.
Criminal proceedings against Yevgeny Prigojine will be dropped and none of the fighters of the Wagner group, which plays a key role alongside the Russian army in Ukraine, will be prosecuted even though they had taken up arms against the Kremlin. “No one will persecute (the fighters), given their merits on the front” Ukrainian, assured Dmitry Peskov.
The Russian authorities had never before shown such leniency, throwing in prison opponents and anonymous critics of Vladimir Putin and his offensive against Ukraine.
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