In videos posted on social media early on Saturday, Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that he was at the headquarters of the Southern Military District (SMD) in Rostov and demanded that defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general Valery Gerasimov come to the city, 1,000 kilometres south of Moscow. The videos could not be verified.
“We have arrived here, we want to receive the chief of the general staff and Shoigu,” Prigozhin said in one video, seated between two senior Russian generals. “Unless they come, we’ll be here, we’ll blockade the city of Rostov and head for Moscow.”
Will probably fail, but likely won’t be the first uprising. And it’s not as if Russia has troops to spare either.
Pull too many troops from the front line? Ukraine will exploit it.
Pull too many troops from behind the front line? Increased desertion of troops on the front line.
Pull too many troops from another Russian region? Possibility of an uprising there.
I doubt there’s going to be an actual uprising. Prigozhin is a windbag: he never follows through. Remember when he was saying that Wagner would pull out of Bakhmut unless they get ammo 'n shit?
They didn’t get munitions, and they didn’t pull out.
I mean, he’s invading Russia now.
I’d say that a bit more stern than just pulling out.
Yep, at the very least it’s a distraction and hopefully Ukraine can capitalize on it.