
The head of the Russian Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said overnight he had taken control of the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don as part of an attempt to oust Russia’s defence minister. The 62-year-old's open challenge to Moscow’s military comes after months of growing tensions over the conduct of the war in Ukraine.
Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin announced early on Saturday that his forces had taken control of Russia’s army headquarters in the city of Rostov-on-Don, a city of more than a million people where Russia has based one of its outposts overseeing military operations in Ukraine.