After a night of confusion and chaos, the Wagner group commander, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has said he is inside Russian army headquarters in Rostov-on-Don. More extraordinarily, the chief of the mercenary group claimed his fighters were in control of the city’s military sites.
Those claims cannot be independently verified and Prigozhin has a history of making outlandish and inaccurate statements. However, it is clear that the situation in the southern Russian city is precarious – and that turmoil in the region that is so strategically important to Moscow could have far-reaching ramifications for the conflict in Ukraine.
What has happened?
On Friday, Prigozhin accused Russian troops of launching a rocket attack that killed scores of his fighters. In a serious escalation in the feud between the Wagner boss and top Russian military commanders, Prigozhin said his forces would march on Rostov.
In the hours that followed, unverified video and images on social media showed armed men on the streets of Rostov, around the regional police headquarters and in tanks positioned outside the headquarters of the local military command.
The governor of the region the city is located in has asked people to refrain from travelling to the city centre and, if possible, not to leave their homes.
By early Saturday morning, Prigozhin had released a video in which he claimed to be inside Rostov’s main military command and in control.
Why is Rostov significant?
Rostov-on-Don is the largest city in southern Russia and is the capital of the Rostov region that adjoins parts of eastern Ukraine where the war is raging.
The city – just 60 miles (100km) from Ukraine’s border – is home to the Russian southern military district command, whose 58th Combined Arms Army is fighting against Kyiv’s counteroffensive in southern Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) thinktank.
Rostov also houses the command centre for the Russian joint group of forces in Ukraine as a whole and is therefore a critical logistical hub for the Russian army.
Any threat to the Russian military’s presence there is likely to have ramifications on some critical aspects of the war effort, the ISW says.
What does this mean for the conflict in Ukraine?
Despite claiming to be in control of Rostov’s military sites, Prigozhin has said his operation will not impede Russia’s war effort.
In his statement on Saturday, Prigozhin said his fighters were in control of an aerodrome, but that planes taking part in the Ukraine offensive were “leaving as normal” from the airfield.
“We took [the aerodrome] under control so that the attack aviation did not strike us, but strike Ukrainians,” Prigozhin said.
In a separate, unverified video, Prigozhin was seen telling military officials that his mercenaries would “not interfere with them commanding troops” but that their orders in Ukraine were leading to huge losses.
“We came here to stop the disgrace in the country that we live in,” Prigozhin said, before adding: “We are saving Russia.”
