Britain’s defense ministry assured on Saturday that the Wagner paramilitary group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, has control of the city of Rostov and is on its way to Moscow, posing a “threat to the integrity of the Russian state”.
According to today’s most recent assessment, British military intelligence estimates that the Wagner group currently controls “key security areas” in the city, namely “the headquarters that directs military operations in Ukraine.”
The ministry found that soldiers of the Wagner group were advancing from there to the north of the country, “through the Voronezh region” and that “it is almost certain that they are targeting Moscow”.
The British Ministry of Defense has “very limited evidence of fighting” between Wagner and Russian troops, “some of which remained passive”, in a gesture of “consent” towards the group of mercenaries.
In general, what has happened in recent hours is the culmination of the “enmity” that existed between the Wagner group and the Russian Defense Ministry, which has now turned into an “absolute military confrontation” and a threat to the integrity of the Russian state. , they said. .
“In the coming hours, the loyalty of the Russian security forces, and in particular the Russian National Guard, will be fundamental to the development of the crisis – the main challenge facing the Russian state in recent times,” the defense ministry concluded. on his social network ‘Twitter’.
The head of the Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, today claimed the occupation of Rostov, a key city in southern Russia for the war in Ukraine, and called for an uprising against the Russian military command, which he accused of killing its fighters. to fall.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin described the paramilitary group’s action as an insurgency, saying it represented a “mortal threat” to the Russian state and a betrayal that guaranteed there would be no “civil war”.
Prigozhin had previously accused the Russian military of attacking his mercenary camps, causing “a very large number of casualties”, allegations denied by the Russian Defense Ministry.
Prigozhin’s accusations expose deep tensions within Moscow’s troops over the offensive in Ukraine.
Source: DN
