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A top Russian general has 'vanished' amid claims he had advance knowledge of the weekend armed revolt which threatened Vladimir Putin's regime. One theory is that General Sergei 'Armageddon' Surovikin is under interrogation over a plot to oust defence minister Sergei Shoigu amid a hunt to purge the enemies within. Surovikin, 56, is the second-in-command of the Russian armed forces. He has known links to 'coup leader' Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary army chief. US officials briefed on American intelligence said a top Russian general had advance knowledge of Prigozhin's plans to rebel against Shoigu and chief of the armed...

Yevgeny Prigozhin used a false pretext to lead his Wagner Group forces in an armed insurrection against the Russian state, according to a senior U.S. official. Prigozhin had been plotting ways to reverse his fortunes in the face of waning power and came up with a plan to claim his forces had been bombed, which he would then use to justify actions against Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russian defense leaders, the senior official said. The precipitating factor for Prigozhin’s military march was the directive that his forces be increasingly incorporated into the Russian military, the official said. Prigozhin...

Since June 1, even the radio has been turned off in my cell. I can't see other people, and when I do I'm not allowed to talk to them. So when I entered the courtroom and the courtroom and the lawyers asked me, "So how did martial law go for you?", I thought it was some kind of new joke or Internet meme that hadn't reached me yet. And when, a minute later, they were telling me about the seizure of Rostov, the helicopters that had been shot down, and the armed column heading for Moscow to "kill that bastard...

The events of the past weekend (June 23 - 25, 2023) were so surreal and phantasmagorical that they militate against narration and defy description. On Friday, the infamous Wagner Group launched what appeared to be a genuine armed insurrection against the Russian state. They occupied portions of Rostov on Don - a city of over 1 million people, regional capital, and headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District - before setting off in an armed column towards Moscow. This column - replete with heavy military equipment including air defense systems - came within a few hundred miles of the capital -...

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a speech on June 26 seeking to persuade as many Wagner fighters and leaders as possible to join the Russian military and continue fighting against Ukraine and to cause individuals most loyal to Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin to self-identify. Putin continued to denounce the organizers of the armed rebellion as traitors. Putin thanked Russian society and the Russian security forces for defending Russia’s sovereignty and expressed gratitude to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for brokering negotiations with the perpetrators of the rebellion. Putin did not name Prigozhin specifically, but Putin’s speech leaves little room for...

Highlights: In Belarus, camps for mercenaries PMC Wagner are being built, relatives say that militants are sent to Belarus. The camp is designed for 8,000 fighters and will be located 200 km from the border with Ukraine. A source close to the leadership of the Mogilev region confirmed that the authorities have orders to build a camp for Wagner in the region. The British General Staff warned that after Prigozhin's departure to Belarus, the "Wagnerites" could prepare an offensive against Kyiv.. . . So, about one of the relatives, citing her friend, said that the remaining Wagner units in Rostov-on-Don...

Fox News guest Rebekah Koffler claimed during an interview with host Eric Shawn on Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin worked with Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin to stage the recent armed coup as a “classic false flag.”Over the last 24 hours, chaos has upended the military and political establishment in Russia after Prigozhin marched his paramilitary group from Ukraine into Russia, taking over two cities and marching his men toward Moscow. In a sudden turn of events, however, Prigozhin reportedly called off the armed coup after negotiations with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.The rebellion represented the largest existential threat to...

President Vladimir Putin on Monday paid tribute to pilots who were killed during the failed weekend mutiny, confirming earlier reports by military bloggers that several planes were shot down by Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner militia. -snip- "The courage and self-sacrifice of the fallen heroes-pilots saved Russia from tragic devastating consequences," Putin said in his first public address about the mutiny since the weekend events. There has been no official information about how many pilots died or how many aircraft were shot down. Some Russian Telegram channels monitoring Russia's military activity, including the blog Rybar with more than a million subscribers, reported...

The leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced that the unit would cease to operate on July 1st, just two days after the rebellion against Russia. He explained that "the purpose of the march to Moscow was to demand accountability from those who made mistakes in the conduct of the operation...

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has broken his silence after abandoning his armed uprising on Saturday evening, insisting that he marched on Moscow to stop the Kremlin taking control of his mercenary army and denying a plot to overthrow Vladimir Putin. Speaking in an 11-minute audio clip posted on Wagner-affiliated Telegram channels, Prigozhin claimed the armed uprising was a 'master class' on how Russia's assault on Kyiv should have looked. He said he only called off his group's surge for the Russian capital to avoid spilling Russian blood, adding that the uprising was intended to register a protest at the ineffectual...

[The following are compilations of Twitter threads from certain users who have generally been on Russia's side of the Russia/Ukraine war, though they certainly are not on the same page with regards to their opinion of Putin and Russia's handling of the invasion of Ukraine. After the dashes, all of their tweets will be compiled in order, with the last tweet quoted denoted by subsequent hashtags.] [They've also all noted that their analyses are subject to change based on how things unfold from here.] From Armchair Warlord: https://twitter.com/ArmchairW/status/1673116843966611456 ---- Given what we know now about Prigozhin's rebellion - particularly that...

Wagner chef Yevgeny Prigozhin is "out of contact" as mystery shrouds his whereabouts ahead of his exile to Belarus. The mercenary chief's own press team has described the 62-year-old man as "missing and out of contact" tonight, despite being ordered to Belarus. The oligarch was last seen getting into a car in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, as he took selfies with fans and got a hero's welcome after his botched rebellion. However, there is no indication as of yet he has arrived at Aleksandr Lukashenko's landlocked country, which borders Russia. Prigozhin's representatives said in a statement that the father of three cannot...

An ex-CIA analyst has claimed Vladimir Putin 'orchestrated' the coup with Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhi in a 'classic false flag' to try to make the West believe his army had weakened. Rebekah Koffler told Fox News' Eric Shawn on Saturday the coup was staged as a way for the Russian leader to boost his political power and he will eventually 'gain momentum, mobilize additional personnel, and re-energize his offensive on Ukraine.' Prigozhin's forces moved from their camps in Ukraine into Russia on Friday and took over a regional military command in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, before advancing toward...

Vladimir Putin has broken his silence about 'stepping up efforts' in Ukraine in pre-recorded interview that aired after he suffered his worst daily air force losses of the war. The Russian president, on state television today, said he was 'confident' in his forces where he alleged are 'in a position to implement all the plans and tasks ahead of us'. His speech aired today after it was claimed that Wagner mercenary fighters killed 39 pilots and crew by downing strike helicopters and a military plane during Prigozhin's rebellion. -snip- Putin is believed to have suffered grievous losses as he sought...

<p>All bets are off in Russia today as the paramilitary Wagner mercenary militia forces have launched a coup against Vladimir Putin who, by the way, has reportedly boarded his official plane and fled to the relative safety of Saint Petersburg. Russia now has a war on two fronts, Ukraine and Moscow, from two separate enemies. Never a dull moment on the front lines of the end times.</p>

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has confirmed he has ordered his mercenaries to halt their march on Moscow and retreat to their field camps in Ukraine to avoid shedding Russian blood. 'We are turning back our columns and leave in the opposite direction to the field camps according to the plan,' an audio message on his Telegram feed said after a meeting between Prigozhin and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. An uneasy calm has now prevailed on the streets of Moscow in a city that had been preparing for war. The capital had braced for the arrival of forces from the Wagner...

Lukashenka agreed with Prigozhin to stop military convoys According to the press service of the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, having enlisted the support of Vladimir Putin, spent the whole day negotiating with the head of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin. As a result, the parties came to a mutually beneficial agreement, after which the movement of armed persons of the Wagner company on Russian territory was stopped. https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/status/1672655608506466306

Oh, not yet. Regular Russian army formations still battle on the lines in the Donbas and near Kherson. Vladimir Putin ordered a new blast of missile attacks on Ukrainian cities last night as well. Putin still holds Crimea. However, the rebellion of Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner Group and their strategic execution have made it impossible for Russia to maintain its occupation, let alone win a war. (snip) I won’t recap the specifics of Prigozhin’s actions, but the key to this — as Prigozhin apparently realized too — was Rostov (or Rostov-on-Don, if you prefer). After the Ukrainians won the...

Mutinous Russian mercenary fighters barrelled towards Moscow on Saturday after seizing a southern city overnight, with Russia's military firing on them from the air but seemingly incapable of slowing their lightning advance. Facing the first serious challenge to his grip on power of his 23-year rule, President Vladimir Putin vowed to crush an armed mutiny he compared to Russia's Civil War a century ago. The fighters of the Wagner private army run by former Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin were already most of the way to the capital, having captured the city of Rostov and set off on an 1,100 km...

Moscow is preparing for war and battening down the hatches as soldiers build outposts and military vehicles flood the streets ahead of the expected arrival of Russia's Wagner militia forces. Wagner chief Yevgney Prigozhin initiated a military coup against Putin overnight, which has seen the group take key cities and threaten the President, who called them 'traitors'. Putin addressed the Russian people on Saturday, warning that the military leader had 'stabbed him in the back', as Moscow prepares to enter into lockdown, with troops digging in in preparation to defend the city. Prigozhin and his feared 25,000-strong Wagner militia took...