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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Helen Livingstone (now), Hayden Vernon, Lauren Aratani, Charlie Moloney, Geneva Abdul, Adam Fulton, Abené Clayton and Nadeem Badshah (earlier)

Mercenary troops withdraw from Rostov as Prigozhin calls off rebellion – as it happened

Yevgeny Prigozhin Russia Vladimir Putin Ukraine Sergei Surovikin FSB Moscow Tass Telegram
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov. He is to be exiled to Belarus.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov. He is to be exiled to Belarus. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

We’re now closing this blog but you can follow our new blog, with all the latest developments, here.

Summary

If you’re just joining us, here’s a roundup of the key developments:

  • In an abrupt about-face, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said he had called off his troops’ march on Moscow and ordered them to move out of Rostov. Under a deal brokered by Belarus, Prigozhin agreed to leave Russia and move to Belarus. He will not face charges and Wagner troops who took part in the rebellion will not face any action in recognition of their previous service to Russia.

  • In a statement, Prigozhin said that he wanted to avoid the spilling of “Russian blood”. “Now the moment has come when blood can be shed,” he said. “Therefore, realising all the responsibility for the fact that Russian blood will be shed from one side, we will turn our convoys around and go in the opposite direction to our field camps.”

  • The Wagner leader was later pictured leaving the headquarters of the southern military district (SMD) in Rostov, which his forces had occupied on Saturday. Wagner forces also shot down three military helicopters and had entered the Lipetsk region, about 360km (225 miles) south of Moscow, before they were called back.

  • Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko’s press office was the first to announce that Prigozhin would be backing down, saying that Lukashenko had negotiated a de-escalation with the Wagner head after talking to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko said that Putin has since thanked him for his negotiation efforts.

  • Putin has not publicly commented on Lukashenko’s deal with Prigozhin. He appeared on television earlier on Saturday in an emergency broadcast, issuing a nationwide call for unity in the face of a mutinous strike that he compared to the revolution of 1917. “Any internal mutiny is a deadly threat to our state, to us as a nation,” he said.

  • Putin reportedly took a plane out of Moscow heading north-west on Saturday afternoon. It is unclear where he went or his current whereabouts.

  • Before the Belarus deal was announced, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that: “Everyone who chooses the path of evil destroys himself. Whoever throws hundreds of thousands into the war, eventually must barricade himself in the Moscow region from those whom he himself armed.”

  • Ukraine’s military said on Saturday its forces made advances near Bakhmut, on the eastern front, and further south. Deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said an offensive was launched near a group of villages ringing Bakhmut, which was taken by Wagner forces in May after months of fighting. Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, commander of the southern front, said Ukrainian forces had liberated an area near Krasnohorivka, west of the Russian-held regional centre of Donetsk.

Samuel Bendett, a Russia expert at the Center for Naval Analyses, has also posted some analysis about the day’s events, in which he argues that there have to be some consequences for Prigozhin and Wagner.

“Otherwise the message is that a military force can openly challenge the state, and others have to learn that the Russian state indeed has a monopoly on violence inside the country,” he writes.

“There has to be ‘some’ accountability for the military personnel who were involved and others who made no active showing of stopping Wagner, or avoided challenging Prigozhin’s force altogether. Again, Prigozhin’s actions were a challenge to the state and those who did not prevent Wagner’s march contributed to Prigozhin’s ‘success.’”

He also notes that the Kremlin will remember who spoke out against Prigozhin and who was notable by their absence.

“Those politicians who said nothing about the crisis, were too meek in their critique of Prigozhin were noted by the Kremlin,” he wrote.

“The MOD was Prigozhin’s ultimate target, and [defence minister Sergei] Shoigu with [chief of the general staff Valery] Gerasimov were nowhere to be seen. There will have to be some explanation for their public absence. Generals Surovikin and Alekseev probably earned at least some ‘bonus points’ for their public appeals to Wagner.”

And a final thought: “Unclear yet what to make of it all right now. Wagner and Prigozhin emerging unscathed is probably a big shock for the MOD, the military and the security services.”

And from our correspondent Andrew Roth, who wrote about reactions to Wagner in Rostov for the Observer:

Updated

A thought from our correspondent Pjotr Sauer, who has been covering Russia and the war in Ukraine.

Rob Lee, a military expert at the US-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, has posted some analysis of the last 24 hours, which have given many of us whiplash. He starts by saying he has “more questions than answers”.

Regarding the Russian president, he says its “too soon to say Putin will fall anytime soon” but notes that “Putin and the MoD’s leadership look weak”.

It’s “not clear this will affect Ukraine’s offensive” but “the previous Kremlin-Wagner relationship is over” and “Wagner-Russian military cooperation will likely suffer”.

He also says Prigozhin “likely alienated many pro-war figures for doing this while Russian soldiers are defending against an offensive and killing Russian airmen” and notes that there is “a difference between soldiers and police not shooting at Wagner and joining them”.

Given Wagner’s presence overseas, “the greatest effects from this event may be felt in MENA/Africa”, says Lee.

Updated

Wagner group fighters have left the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and are headed back to their field camps, the regional governor, Vasily Golubev, has confirmed.

The confirmation comes after Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was pictured leaving the city, where his troops had captured the headquarters of the military’s Southern District Command on Saturday.

Under the terms of the deal brokered by Belarus to end his rebellion, he is now expected to leave Russia and go to Belarus.

I’m Helen Livingstone, taking over the blog from my colleague Hayden Vernon.

Wagner members prepare to depart from the Southern Military District's headquarters and return to their base in Rostov.
Wagner members prepare to depart from the Southern Military District's headquarters and return to their base in Rostov. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Former US intelligence officials have said that Wagner’s march on Moscow has revived fears about what would happen to Russia’s nuclear stockpile in the event of domestic upheaval, Reuters reports.

Despite an agreement on Saturday by Wagner’s boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to call off the insurrection, the episode signalled that President Putin’s grasp on power could be waning.

Images of tanks on Russian streets brought to mind the failed 1991 coup by communist hardliners that raised concerns about the security of the Soviet nuclear arsenal.

“The IC [intelligence community] will be super-focused on the [Russian] nuclear stockpile,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA officer who oversaw the agency’s clandestine operations in Europe and Eurasia.

“You want to know who has control of the nuclear weapons because you’re worried that terrorists or bad guys like [Chechen leader Ramzan] Kadyrov might come after them for the leverage they can get,” said Daniel Hoffman, a former senior CIA officer who served as the agency’s Moscow station chief.

US officials said they did not see an immediate threat to the security of Russia’s strategic and tactical weapons.

“We have not seen any changes in the disposition of Russian nuclear forces,” said a National Security Council spokesperson in response to questions from Reuters. “Russia has a special responsibility to maintain command, control and custody of its nuclear forces and to ensure that no actions are taken that imperil strategic stability.”

Updated

All restrictions previously imposed on highways in Russia have been lifted, the country’s Tass news agency said.

The authorities of the regions bordering Moscow had been taking increasingly serious steps to slow down the Wagner column that was approaching the Russian capital before a deal between the mercenary group and the Kremlin was struck.

One video, which the BBC said it had verified, showed diggers destroying the road to Moscow in the Lipetsk region.

Updated

UK fighter jets have been scrambled to respond to Russian aircraft 21 times in the last three weeks under Nato’s air policing operations in the Baltic region, AFP reports.

The RAF Typhoons, currently operating out of Estonia, are part of so-called “quick reaction alert” aircraft used by the western alliance to secure its eastern European flank.

The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said the intercepts were “a stark reminder of the value of collective defence and deterrence provided by Nato”.

The fighters, which have been operating out of an Estonian air base since March, were launched to monitor the Russian aircraft when they failed to respond to air traffic agencies, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement.

Updated

Footage on social media claims to show Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin leaving the military headquarters in the city of Rostov-on-Don that his troops had previously captured. A group of onlookers applauded and approached the car to shake hands with the mercenary chief.

Rostov-on-Don is an important tactical location for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. It is the largest city in southern Russia and the capital of the Rostov region that adjoins parts of eastern Ukraine where the war is raging. The city is just 60 miles (100km) from the border and is home to the Russian southern military district command – the headquarters Wagner took over – whose 58th Combined Arms Army is fighting against Kyiv’s counteroffensive.

Updated

Shortly before the announcement of Wagner’s retreat, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, delivered his daily video address. He said Saturday’s events had showed “that the bosses of Russia do not control anything”. The Kremlin, he said, “showed all Russian bandits, mercenaries, oligarchs” that it is easy to “capture Russian cities and, probably, arsenals with weapons”.

Switching into Russian during the address, Zelenskiy claimed that “the man from the Kremlin” was “very afraid”. Zelenskiy used the backdrop of the situation in Russia to urge allies to give Ukraine F-16 fighter aircraft and ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles, as well as underlined the importance of Ukraine joining NATO.

Updated

Wagner chief Prigozhin will move to Belarus and charges to be dropped under deal

The Wagner group chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, will move to Belarus under a deal to end the armed mutiny he led against Russia’s military leadership, the Kremlin said on Saturday night.

The deal was brokered by the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Lukashenko had offered to mediate, with Vladimir Putin’s agreement, because he had known Prigozhin personally for about 20 years.

Peskov said the criminal case that had been opened against Prigozhin for armed mutiny would be dropped, and that the Wagner fighters who had taken part in his “march for justice” would not face any action, in recognition of their previous service to Russia.

Although Putin had earlier vowed to punish those who participated in the mutiny, Peskov said the agreement had had the “higher goal” of avoiding confrontation and bloodshed.

Prigozhin and all of his fighters vacated the military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don that they had previously taken over, the RIA news agency reported.

Updated

Summary

It’s about 11pm in Moscow. Here’s a quick overview of everything that’s happened so far today:

  • In an abrupt about-face, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin halted his mercenary troops and ordered them to move out of Rostov. In a statement, Prigozhin said that he wanted to avoid the spilling of “Russian blood”.

  • Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko’s press office was the first to announce that Prigozhin would be backing down, saying that Lukashenko had negotiated a de-escalation with the Wagner head after talking to Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko said that Putin has since thanked him for his negotiation efforts.

  • Putin has not publicly commented on Lukashenko’s deal with Prigozhin.

  • Before Prigozhin called back his troops, Wagner had entered the Lipetsk region, about 360km (225 miles) south of Moscow, overnight. Putin had reportedly taken a plane out of Moscow heading north-west in the afternoon, though it is unclear where he went or his current whereabouts.

I’m handing the blog over to my colleague, Hayden Vernon. We’ll continue to follow the situation in Russia, so stay tuned.

Updated

Clips are spreading on social media of crowds in Rostov cheering Wagner soldiers as they leave the city.

Experts are still scratching their heads about exactly what happened, but the main consensus is that Wagner’s “march for justice”, even if brief, will have an impact on Vladimir Putin’s hold over Russia moving forward.

Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko’s press office said that Vladimir Putin has thanked him for negotiating with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who agreed to pull back his mercenaries after talking with Lukashenko.

“Today at 9 pm, the presidents spoke on the phone again. Belarus president has informed the Russia president in great detail about the results of his negotiations with authorities of Wagner PMC,” the statement reads. “President of Russia supported and thanked his Belarus colleague for the work he did.”

The Kremlin has yet to make any public statements about the negotiations.

Russian state-controlled TV station RT is reporting that Wagner troops are packing up in Rostov, with video footage of Wagner soldiers appearing to prepare to leave.

Here’s a look at Yevgeny Prigozhin’s full statement on pulling back his mercenaries, made via audio message:

AP confirms Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin is halting his mercenaries moments after Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko said he brokered a de-escalation deal. In an audio message, Prigozhin said that he is stopping his troops to avoid “Russian bloodshed”.

Belarus president says Prigozhin accepted de-escalation proposal

The office of the Belarus president, Alexander Lukashenko, just announced that Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has accepted a proposal to “stop the movement of armed persons of the Wagner company on the territory of Russia and take further steps to de-escalate tensions”, the president’s office said, with similar reporting in Russian news outlets.

The statement said that Vladimir Putin briefed Lukashenko in the morning and, with his approval, Lukashenko held negotiating talks with Prigozhin.

“Negotiations continued throughout the day. As a result, they came to agreements on the inadmissibility of unleashing a bloody massacre on the territory of Russia,” the statement read.

Wagner and Prigozhin have not commented on the negotiations.

Updated

US president Joe Biden spoke with the leaders of France, Germany and the UK on Saturday as mutinous Russian mercenaries barrelled towards Moscow after seizing the southern city of Rostov overnight.

“President Biden spoke today with president Emmanuel Macron of France, chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, and prime minister Rishi Sunak of the United Kingdom. The leaders discussed the situation in Russia. They also affirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine,” a White House readout said.

Updated

The Moscow region has suspended mass events outdoors and at educational institutions until 1 July, authorities have announced.

The decree, issued by Govenor Andrei Vorobyov, does not apply to the city itself, but the surrounding areas.

It follows the mayor of Moscow urging residents to refrain from travelling around the capital.

Updated

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday that Russia will not allow the Wagner mutiny led by Yevgeny Prigozhin to turn into a coup or a global crisis, Russia’s state news agency Tass reports.

Answering questions from journalists, Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, said the whole world would be on the brink of catastrophe if Russian nuclear weapons fell into the hands of Wagner.

“The history of mankind hasn’t yet seen the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons under control by bandits,” Medvedev said. “Such a crisis will not be limited by just one country’s borders, the world will be put on the brink of destruction.”

He added: “We won’t allow such a turn of events.”

Medvedev has frequently used hardline rhetoric since Russia sent troops into Ukraine, regularly reminding the West about Russia’s nuclear arsenal in a bid to discourage the US and its allies from ramping up weapons supplies to Kyiv.

Updated

Moscow mayor urges people to stay home

The mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, has said in a statement that Moscow residents should refrain from trips around the city as far as possible given a counter-terrorism operation has been declared and said the situation was “difficult”, Reuters reports.

Sobyanin also said in the statement, released on Telegram, that Monday would be a “non-working day” in order “to minimise risks”.

Updated

The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has said he is in touch with the UK’s allies about the Wagner mutiny, PA Media reports.

The PM urged all parties involved to protect civilian lives, as he indicated he will speak to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and other western leaders on Saturday.

“We’re keeping a close eye on the situation, as it’s evolving on the ground as we speak,” Sunak told the BBC.

“The most important thing I’d say is for all parties to be responsible and to protect civilians, and that’s about as much as I can say at this moment.”

Asked whether he had spoken to Zelenskiy, Sunak said: “I’m in touch with our allies.

“I’ll be speaking to some of them later today, as you would expect us to be co-ordinated on a situation like this, but it is evolving as we speak.”

Updated

Here is a summary of the events so far:

  • According to Ukrainian news agencies, Kyiv has liberated territories near the city of Krasnohorivka in Donetsk region, which have been occupied by pro-Russia separatists since 2014, during the Wagner mutiny in Russia.

  • The governor of Russia’s Lipetsk province says the Wagner mercenary group has entered the region, AP reports. The Lipetsk region is about 360km (225 miles) south of Moscow and much closer to the capital than Rostov-on-Don, where Wagner forces appeared during the night.

  • There have been numerous reports that Vladimir Putin’s presidential plane took off from Moscow’s Vnukovo airport at 2.16pm local time (1216 BST) and then headed north-west. It has not been possible to confirm whether Putin was on the plane and his spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has told the Tass news agency the president is “working in the Kremlin”.

  • Large amounts of cash were found during a raid on Prigozhin’s office, he has reportedly confirmed. Russian media had reported that money was found at the St Petersburg address, something Prigozhin has now confirmed, according to Reuters.

  • The UK government will hold an emergency Cobra meeting to discuss the situation in Russia, Reuters reports.

Updated

Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday that it warned western countries against using the Wagner mercenary group’s mutiny “to achieve their Russophobic goals”, Reuters reports.

The ministry’s social media channels remain active. On Twitter, it recently shared a post by Belarus’s ministry of foreign affairs which stated its support of Russia and called the war in Ukraine a “battle for the future of the Slavic world”.

“We cannot remain aloof from the events happening in the south of Russia,” the post said.

The Russian foreign ministry also shared a video from the Russian embassy in London showing the ambassador, Andrei Kelin, discussing frozen assets in the UK.

Updated

Ukraine liberates territories near city during Wagner mutiny – reports

According to Ukrainian news agencies, Kyiv has liberated territories near the city of Krasnohorivka in Donetsk region, which have been occupied by pro-Russia separatists since 2014.

Oleksandr Tarnavsky, commander of the Tavria operational strategic grouping, spoke to the national news agency of Ukraine, Ukrinform.

“The movement of our forces continues,” Tarnavsky wrote on Telegram on Saturday. “There are tangible successes and progress.”

The Guardian cannot independently verify the claims.

Updated

Anti-terrorist measures have been introduced in regions that lie between Moscow and the advancing Wagner rebels.

In the Tambov region – which neighbours the Lipetsk, which Wagner forces have just entered – mass events were cancelled on Saturday, Associated Press reports.

Those events included high-school graduation parties. Russia’s education ministry said such parties were being postponed until 1 July in Moscow, the region around the capital and “a number of other regions where additional anti-terrorist measures have been introduced”.

In the capital, traffic on the Moscow River was suspended. Police officers in bulletproof vests and with machine guns were seen near the entrance of the major highway that links Moscow with Voronezh and Rostov–on-Don.

The BBC reported that improvised checkpoints have appeared at the entrances to Moscow from the south.

Footage shows garbage trucks blocking the road and police cars nearby. It also shows military vehicles.

Updated

Justin Trudeau said on Saturday that Canada’s incident response group would meet to discuss the latest developments in Russia as mutinous Russian mercenaries headed towards Moscow after seizing a southern city overnight.

“We’re in contact with our allies and will continue to monitor the situation closely,” the Canadian prime minister tweeted.

Updated

The BBC Russia has reported evacuations of public buildings across Moscow as the Wagner rebels advance.

The broadcaster said museums near the Kremlin were being evacuated in Moscow.

There have been reports over the last few hours of the evacuation of the Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin Museum and the GES-2 House of Culture, the BBC added.

The Mega Belaya Dacha shopping centre and the Kvartal shopping centre were also evacuated in Moscow, it said.

Updated

Latvia has closed its borders to Russians amid an armed rebellion against Vladimir Putin’s regime.

The Baltic state’s president-elect on Saturday said Latvia had tightened its border security in response to the mutiny under way in Russia and would not be admitting Russians.

“Latvia is closely following the developing situation in Russia ... Border security has been strengthened, visa or border entry from Russians leaving Russia due to current events won’t be considered,” Edgars Rinkēvičs said on Twitter.

“Latvia will not issue humanitarian or other types of visas,” added the president-elect, who is also still the foreign minister.

Latvia last year stopped issuing new visas to Russian citizens, but had until now made an exception for humanitarian visas.

It is unclear if the visas issued thus far will remain eligible for entry.

Updated

Russian authorities have reportedly offered the Wagner mutineers an amnesty if they surrender.

The Russian state news agency Tass has been told by a Russian lawmaker that the Wagner fighters have been promised an amnesty if they lay down their weapons but they need to act fast, Reuters reports.

“Wagner fighters can still lay down their arms and avoid punishment given their achievements during the special military operation (in Ukraine), but they should do it fast,” TASS cited the lawmaker, Pavel Krasheninnikov, as saying.

The Turkish presidency meanwhile confirmed that the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, spoke by phone with Vladimir Putin on Saturday and urged him to act with common sense.

It said the two discussed recent developments in Russia and Erdoğan told Putin that Turkey was ready to do its part to help bring about a peaceful solution to the situation.

Updated

Wagner mercenaries enter Lipetsk province, Russian governor says

The governor of Russia’s Lipetsk province says the Wagner mercenary group has entered the region, AP reports.

The Lipetsk region is about 360km (225 miles) south of Moscow and much closer to the capital than Rostov-on-Don, where Wagner forces appeared during the night.

Authorities “are taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety of the population. The situation is under control,” the governor, Igor Artamonov, said on Telegram. He did not give details about the Wagner presence.

Authorities in the area, which is in Russia’s south-west, earlier urged residents to stay at home on Saturday after the Wagner group vowed to take up arms to topple the country’s military leadership.

Wagner forces are already in control of Rostov after an overnight rebellion. It appears they have now travelled about 500 miles north as they barrel towards Moscow.

Reuters journalists earlier saw troop carriers and a flatbed truck carrying a tank careening past the city of Voronezh more than halfway to Moscow, where a helicopter fired on them. But there were no reports of the rebels meeting any substantial resistance on the highway.

Updated

Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs continues to share comments on day-to-day issues such as biological weapons and the war in Ukraine, despite the impending threat of the Wagner mercenary group.

Within the last hour, the ministry tweeted three times, but has not made mention of the mutiny since sharing comments from Vladimir Putin’s speech earlier this morning.

An hour ago it said: “On June 22 and 23, Sochi hosted the 4th International Conference ‘Global Threats to Biological Security: Problems and Solutions’. Participants looked closely into the issues of enhancing the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (#BTWC).”

Shortly after, it said: “Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau and his deputy [Chrystia Freeland] cheers neo-Nazis in Kiev, promising them military aid in return for sending more ‘cannon fodder’ to the front. Such a cynical policy proves calamitous for the Ukrainians doomed to fight and die for foreign interests.”

Within the last 10 minutes, the ministry shared a comment from the deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, who said: “The Americans are carrying out projects aimed at developing components of biological weapons outside their national territory.

“We will continue insisting on a substantive discussion of the issue in the framework of the [Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention].”

It was not known whether the posts had been scheduled in advance or whether ministry staff were still operating the account.

Updated

Speculation over Putin's whereabouts amid reports his plane left Moscow

There have been numerous reports that Vladimir Putin’s presidential plane took off from Moscow’s Vnukovo airport at 2.16pm local time (1216 BST) and then headed north-west.

According to data from the FlightRadar tracking website, the plane reached the Tver area – about 110 miles from Moscow and where Putin has a residence – before disappearing from the system.

It has not been possible to confirm whether Putin was on the plane and his spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has told the Tass news agency the president is “working in the Kremlin”.

Meanwhile, Iranian state media quoted the foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani on Saturday as saying Iran supports the rule of law in the Russian Federation and considers the latest developments there an internal Russian matter.

Updated

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Saturday signed a law permitting 30-day detentions for breaking martial law in places where it has been imposed, the state-owned RIA news agency reported.

It has been claimed in unconfirmed Russian media reports that the cash found at Yevgeny Prigozhin’s St Petersburg office totalled 4bn roubles (£37m).

Reuters reports that Prigozhin said the money – found in cardboard boxes in vehicles near his office by the FSB security service – was to cover salaries and other expenses for his Wagner fighters.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Twitter he had spoken to G7 foreign ministers and the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy to discuss the situation in Russia.

“The United States will stay in close coordination with allies and partners as the situation continues to develop,” he said.

Updated

Flights from Moscow have reportedly sold out as the Wagner mercenary group approaches.

Der Spiegel has reported that tickets for direct connections from Moscow to Tbilisi, Astana and Istanbul are no longer available.

Google Maps is showing road closures on the M4 south of Moscow, the route the Wagner rebels are taking.

The governor of Russia’s Voronezh region said on Saturday that emergency services were trying to put out a burning fuel tank at an oil depot.

More than 100 firefighters and 30 units of equipment were working at the site, Alexander Gusev, the region’s governor, said on Telegram.

Video footage obtained by Reuters showed a ball of fire erupting after a helicopter flew near a residential area. The Voronezh location was verified by Reuters by buildings and road characteristics that matched satellite imagery.

Updated

The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has spoken to her counterparts within the Group of Seven industrialised nations about developments in Russia, the foreign ministry in Berlin said on Saturday.

“Foreign minister Baerbock has just discussed the situation with the foreign ministers of the G7,” said a ministry spokesperson, adding that the German government’s crisis team was also meeting.

Updated

Large amount of cash found at Prigozhin's offices during raid

Large amounts of cash were found during a raid on Prigozhin’s office, he has reportedly confirmed.

Russian media had reported that money was found at the St Petersburg address, something Prigozhin has now confirmed, according to Reuters.

He has said the money was for Wagner expenses, it reports.

Russian state media has also reported that Vladimir Putin has held a call with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who expressed support for the current Russian leadership, they claim.

A security council statement from Belarus has also said that country remains an ally of Russia and that internal disputes are a “gift to the collective west”.

Updated

Authorities in Russia’s south-western Lipetsk region urged residents to stay at home on Saturday after the Wagner mercenary group vowed to take up arms to topple the country’s military leadership.

“To ensure law and order and the safety of the citizens of the Lipetsk region, the operational headquarters of the region asks residents without urgent need not to leave their homes and refrain from any travel by personal or public transport,” the press service of the regional government said in a statement on social media.

The announcement came as the governor of the neighbouring region of Voronezh, where the army said it was leading “combat” operations, voiced support for Putin after officials said an oil depot was on fire there.

Updated

Russian soldiers have reportedly set up a machine gun position on the edge of Moscow, according to photographs published by a Russian newspaper.

According to Reuters, Vedomosti newspaper reported the gun had been set up at the south-western edge of the city. Photographs also showed armed police gathering at the point where the M4 highway – which mutinous Wagner mercenaries are moving along – reaches the Russian capital. The Kyiv Post, a Ukrainian newspaper, reported that trenches were being dug on the edge of Moscow.

Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, said on Saturday it was clear that what he called an attempt to destabilise society and ignite a fratricidal civil war had failed, the TASS news agency reported.

Naryshkin was referring to what the authorities say is an armed mutiny by the Wagner mercenary chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Meanwhile, Prigozhin said his troops had not needed to fire a single shot when they took control of the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District in Rostov.

In a new audio message released by his press service on Saturday, he said his men had been fired on by artillery and helicopters en route to Rostov.

He said he thought he had the support of the Russian people for what he calls his “march of justice.”

Updated

Prigozhin and Wagner cannot challenge Putin’s power directly, but they expose his weakening grip

For Opinion, Keir Giles says the insurrection won’t stop the war, but a distracted Russia is good for the world.

Once again Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine has taken a turn he never expected. The Russian leader’s brief speech denouncing the Wagner group’s Yevgeny Prigozhin, and what appears to be a significant mutiny, showed he knows just how dangerous the situation could be for him – but if he has a convincing plan for how to deal with it, he didn’t share it.

Putin compared Prigozhin’s actions to the “intrigues” that he said brought down the Russian army, and then the state itself, in 1917. He’s not wrong – this is not unlike the way Russian army units left the front en masse during that military collapse.

Putin’s defiant rhetoric promising to deal firmly with this treachery comes after weeks of silence over the growing confrontation between Prigozhin and Russia’s regular military. Invoking what happened in 1917 may mean that Putin realises he has left this too late, and allowed a real challenge to the stability of his power in Russia to develop.

Read more here.

Russia: Putin accuses Wagner boss of treason in national address

Vladimir Putin said in an emergency televised address on Saturday that an “armed rebellion” by the Wagner mercenary group was treason, and that anyone who had taken up arms against the Russian military would be punished.

The Russian president said that he would do everything to protect his country, adding that the Russian armed forces “have been given the necessary orders” to stabilise the situation in Rostov-on-Don, where Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed his forces had taken control of all military installations.

Updated

The Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has said his forces have been fired on by artillery and claims to have taken control of the Russian military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don without firing a single shot, Reuters reports.

In a new audio message released by his press service, he said his men had been fired on by artillery and helicopters en route to Rostov.

He said he thought he had the support of the Russian people for what he calls his “march of justice.”

The Guardian has not independently verified these claims.

Updated

Here are the latest images coming across the wires:

A view of streets amid tensions between the Kremlin and the head of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
A view of streets amid tensions between the Kremlin and the head of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Members of Wagner group patrol in an area near a tank outside a circus building in the city of Rostov-on-Don.
Members of Wagner group patrol in an area near a tank outside a circus building in the city of Rostov-on-Don. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Servicemen from Wagner Group block a street in downtown Rostov-on-Don, southern Russia.
Servicemen from Wagner Group block a street in downtown Rostov-on-Don, southern Russia. Photograph: Arkady Budnitsky/EPA

Pro-war Russian nationalists led by a former FSB security service officer said on Saturday they would soon publish a plan of action to respond to an armed mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group, Reuters reports.

The Russian nationalist group – known as the “Club of Angry Patriots” – said in a statement that a civil war could lead to a humiliating military defeat for the Russian army in Ukraine and warned that Russia was on the brink of catastrophe.

Updated

Wagner uprising marks beginning of civil war in Russia, says Ukraine

Zelenskiy aide claims Ukrainian counteroffensive intensified internal divisions between Moscow and paramilitaries.

Glued to their mobile phones, millions of Ukrainians spent a sleepless night on Friday, after the head of the Wagner mercenary group declared war against his rivals in the Russian military, sparking unprecedented political turmoil in Moscow.

Wagner military column passes Russian city of Voronezh.
Wagner military column passes Russian city of Voronezh. Photograph: Reuters

“Events are developing according to the scenario we talked about all last year,’’ said Mykhailo Podolyak, a key adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “The start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive finally destabilised the Russian elites, intensifying the internal split that arose after the defeat in Ukraine. Today we are actually witnessing the beginning of a civil war.’’

Read more from Lorenzo Tondo and Artem Mazhulin reporting in Kyiv:

Putin has spoken to allies in Belarus and Central Asia after a mutiny by Wagner mercenaries inside Russia.

Vladimir Putin on Saturday spoke to his Belarus ally, president Alexander Lukashenko, AFP reports, citing Belarusian state media:

The president of Russia called the president of Belarus this morning, there was a phone conversation…Vladimir Putin informed his Belarusian colleague about the situation in Russia.

The Kremlin said Putin also spoke to the president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and the president of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

“The president informed them about the situation [in Russia],” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by AFP, citing Russian news agencies.

According to Kazakh media, Tokayev told Putin that events in Russia were an “internal affair,” and Putin thanked him for his “understanding” of the situation.

Putin, who has few allies on the international stage after launching the Ukraine offensive last year, called the Wagner mutiny a “stab in the back”.

Updated

Authorities in Moscow have increased security after the head of the Wagner mercenary group claimed to have seized control of all military sites in the city of Rostov-on-Don, and demanded Russia’s military leadership come to him after accusing them of killing his forces.

Vladimir Putin gave an emergency televised address on Saturday accusing Yevgeny Prigozhin of urging an “armed rebellion”.

Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said the revolt by the Wagner mercenary group showed Russia was in internal “chaos”, as the Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prighozin, said his troops had seized a key military headquarters overseeing the offensive in Ukraine.

Speaking from Austria, Meloni said it was a “situation of chaos inside the Russian Federation which ... clashes a bit with some of the propaganda which we have seen in recent months”, according to AFP.

Updated

UK government to hold emergency Cobra meeting

The UK government will hold an emergency Cobra meeting to discuss the situation in Russia, Reuters reports.

The emergency meeting comes as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said No 10 was keeping a close eye on the situation evolving on the ground and had plans to speak with international allies later today.

Earlier today, Sunak told the BBC: “But the most important thing I’d say is for all parties to be responsible and to protect civilians, and that’s about as much as I can say at this moment.”

Updated

Key event

Russian army helicopters have opened fire on a Wagner military convoy on the M4 highway outside the southern city of Voronezh, Reuters reports, citing a witness.

The Guardian has not independently verified this claim.

Updated

Ukraine calls on international community to 'abandon false neutrality' to 'put an end to evil' of Putin's regime

Ukraine’s foreign minister has called on the international community to “abandon false neutrality” and give his country the weapons it needs to “put an end to the evil” of Putin’s regime.

Dmytro Kuleba tweeted: “Those who said Russia was too strong to lose: look now.

“Time to abandon false neutrality and fear of escalation; give Ukraine all the needed weapons; forget about friendship or business with Russia. Time to put an end to the evil everyone despised but was too afraid to tear down.”

Updated

Vladimir Putin has also spoken to the president of Kazakhstan, according to Kazakh officials.

A statement posted on President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s official website said: “Head of State Kassym-Jomart Tokayev spoke by phone with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin gave information about the situation in the country.

“Kassym-Jomart Tokayev noted that what is happening now is an internal problem of Russia. Constitutional order and the rule of law are the main conditions for maintaining the legal order in the country. This is the basis of society’s security and its successful development.

“Vladimir Putin thanked Kazakhstan for understanding the current situation in the Russian Federation.”

Updated

A Wagner military column has been seen passing the Russian city of Voronezh, a witness told Reuters.

One of the vehicles was a flatbed truck carrying a tank.

Vladimir Putin is also reportedly speaking to the president of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, amid the mutiny. The Russian news agency Tass cites a Kremlin spokesperson on the talks, Reuters says.

US president Joe Biden was briefed on the situation in Russia, and Washington “will be consulting with allies and partners on these developments”, said the National Security Council spokesperson, Adam Hodge.

Updated

The governor of Russia’s Voronezh region said on Saturday that emergency services were trying to put out a burning fuel tank at an oil depot.

More than 100 firefighters and 30 units of equipment were working at the site, Alexander Gusev said on Telegram.

Earlier on Saturday, a Russian security source told Reuters that Wagner fighters had taken control of military facilities in the city of Voronezh, about 500km (310 miles) south of Moscow. Reuters could not independently confirm that assertion.

The Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Post reported the Russian air force had struck a fuel depot amid the armed uprising by Wagner PMC.

Updated

Rishi Sunak said he would be speaking to allies about the armed rebellion by the Wagner group in Russia as he urged all parties involved to protect civilian lives.

The UK prime minister told the BBC: “We’re keeping a close eye on the situation as it’s evolving on the ground as we speak.

“We’re in touch with our allies and, in fact, I’ll be speaking to some of them later today.

“But the most important thing I’d say is for all parties to be responsible and to protect civilians, and that’s about as much as I can say at this moment.”

Updated

For months Yevgeny Prigozhin has theatrically railed against Russia’s military leaders. He has lambasted the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and commander in chief, Valery Gerasimov, accusing them of bungling and incompetence over the war in Ukraine.

In one video Prigozhin blamed Moscow for the deaths of soldiers from his Wagner mercenary unit. Their bodies were piled up behind him. In a letter, he challenged Shoigu to visit the bloody Ukrainian frontline for himself, where Wagner troops have been fighting and dying in the eastern city of Bakhmut.

The Prigozhin-Shoigu feud appeared to be real. But in Putin’s opaque system – more of an Ottoman court than a western-style government – it was hard to tell. For more than two decades Putin has played the role of supreme arbiter-in-chief, playing off one ambitious Kremlin faction against another.

Read the full analysis here:

Updated

In a comment to Ukraine’s state news agency Suspilne, the spokesman of the Ukrainian defence intelligence, Andriy Yusov, said the actions of the Wagner group in Russia were a “continuation of intra-Russian conflicts” that were a consequence of the military aggression of the Russian authorities against Ukraine.

“This is a sign of the collapse of the ruling regime, and such processes will intensify,” he added.

Updated

Glued to their cellphones, millions of Ukrainians spent a sleepless night on Friday, after the head of the Wagner mercenary group declared war against his rivals in the Russian military, sparking an unprecedented political turmoil in Moscow – something Ukraine was craving for so long.

“Events are developing according to the scenario we talked about all last year,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, a key adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “The start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive finally destabilised the Russian elites, intensifying the internal split that arose after the defeat in Ukraine. Today we are actually witnessing the beginning of a civil war.”

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine craved for Russian internal instability as a result of the conflict. On Saturday morning, when the news of Wagner’s insurrection circulated across the country, plunging Russia into the very real threat of civil war, many struggled to believe it was real – until footage being shared online appeared to show Wagner troops with tanks and armoured vehicles surrounding government buildings in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, where Prigozhin claimed to have taken over a Russian army base.

“Prigozhin’s group captures military facilities, headquarters and entire cities, meeting almost no resistance on their way, disarming random soldiers and policemen,” said Podolyak. “Putin declares Prigozhin a traitor and an outlaw and announces appropriate orders to the special services, but nothing happens – a management crisis, a de facto loss of power. At the same time, ‘Wagner’ continues its march to Moscow. Ukraine continues to move along its own path. To the borders of 1991.”

Updated

Rishi Sunak declined to say whether it was good or bad news that Russian president Vladimir Putin was being challenged.

The UK prime minister told the BBC: “It’s an evolving situation, and I think the right thing at this juncture is for us to make sure that we’re on top of it, that we’re in touch with our allies, which we are and I’ll be speaking to them later today, and that we call on all parties to exercise responsibility and to protect civilian lives.”

Asked whether he had spoken to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenksiy, Sunak repeated that he was in contact with allies “as you would expect us to be coordinated on a situation like this”.

Pressed on advice for British citizens remaining in Russia, Sunak said the UK has “had long-standing travel advice against travel to Russia” and “people should keep checking the Foreign Office website for updates”.

Updated

Emergency services are working at the scene of a fuel dump fire in Russia’s Voronezh region, the governor has said, according to Reuters.

Independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta said local Telegram channels were reporting the fire and shared footage that showed a column of black smoke.

It was unclear whether the fire at the fuel dump was linked to the armed uprising by Wagner PMC.

Updated

Zelenskiy says 'no lie can hide' Russia's 'full-scale weakness' amid mutiny

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said “no lie can hide” Russia’s chaos and said the armed mutiny showed “full-scale weakness” in the country.

Posting on Twitter, Zelenskiy said: “Everyone who chooses the path of evil destroys himself. Who sends columns of troops to destroy the lives of another country and cannot stop them from fleeing and betraying when life resists.

“Who terrorizes with missiles, and when they are shot down, humiliates himself to receive Shahed drones. Who despises people and throws hundreds of thousands into the war, in order to eventually barricade himself in the Moscow region from those whom he himself armed.

“For a long time, Russia used propaganda to mask its weakness and the stupidity of its government. And now there is so much chaos that no lie can hide it. And all this is one person, who again and again scares by the year 1917, although he is able to result in nothing else but this.

“Russia’s weakness is obvious. Full-scale weakness. And the longer Russia keeps its troops and mercenaries on our land, the more chaos, pain, and problems it will have for itself later. It is also obvious. Ukraine is able to protect Europe from the spread of Russian evil and chaos. We keep our resilience, unity and strength.

“All our commanders, all our soldiers know what to do. Glory to Ukraine!”

Updated

The Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin – who is now leading an armed rebellion against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s regime – has been one of the most visible faces of the war in Ukraine.

Known for his aggressive PR, foul language and a frequent presence near the frontlines, the shaven-headed Prigozhin recruited thousands of Russian prisoners to fight for his mercenary group and feuded openly with the defence ministry over military plans and ammunition supplies.

Prigozhin, 62, has for decades been known as “Putin’s chef” due to his company’s Kremlin catering contracts. It’s unclear how friendly he and Putin are, but they know each other and both were born and raised in St Petersburg.

A video screengrab shows Prigozhin making a speech after the Southern Military District HQ was surrounded by Wagner fighters in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on Saturday
A video screengrab shows Prigozhin making a speech after the Southern Military District HQ was surrounded by Wagner fighters in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on Saturday. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

After serving a long prison sentence in the 1980s, Prigozhin started out selling hotdogs in his hometown. He soon began to build up a stake in a chain of supermarkets, and eventually opened his own restaurant and catering company.

The US and EU have imposed sanctions on Prigozhin for his role in Wagner. They also accuse him of funding a troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency that Washington says tried to influence US elections.

Updated

European and G7 leaders are in touch over the unfolding crisis in Russia, the president of the European Council has said.

In a tweet Charles Michel said: “Closely monitoring the situation in Russia as it unfolds. In touch with European leaders and G7 partners. This is clearly an internal Russian issue. Our support for Ukraine and [President Zelensky] is unwavering.”

Updated

International policy experts have provided some analysis amid the armed rebellion by the Wagner mercenary group.

James Nixey, the director of the Russia and Eurasia programme at the Chatham House thinktank, said: “Prigozhin may find some support in the Russian military (especially considering the ease with which he took Rostov), but he has none in Moscow, among the elite. He’s not Russia’s next president. Meanwhile, Moscow’s defences are bracing themselves. But the rump of the military that does remain loyal will try to soften up Wagner as it approaches.

“Putin’s speech clearly showed he was rattled. He did not look confident and he did not reassure. After 24 years, this is the first direct challenge to his authority – even if both protagonists are not calling each other by name. That said, Putin still has more in the tank (excuse pun). He’s spent 14-odd years protecting Russia from a colour revolution. But he was probably right about one thing: ‘Russia’s future is at stake’.”

Samantha de Bendern, an associate fellow in Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia programme said: “Rostov is the most important military logistical hub for the Russian armed forces fighting in Ukraine. And yet there were not enough Russian military able or willing to stop Prigozhin taking over the local military HQ.

“A heavily armed Prigozhin then sat down to drink tea with an unarmed deputy defence minister and the deputy head of military intelligence, and moralized them like an angry school teacher. This is so surreal that any deep analysis is difficult at this point but the first round seems to have gone to Prigozhin.”

Updated

Prigozhin directly speaks out against 'deeply mistaken' Putin for first time

Commenting on Putin’s televised address, Yevgeny Prigozhin in an audio note said the president “was deeply mistaken” in calling him a traitor.

“No one is going to turn themselves in at the request of the president … We don’t want the country to continue to live in corruption and lies,” he added.

“We are patriots, and those who are against us are the ones who gathered around the bastards,” Prigozhin said.

The audio message marks the first time that Prigozhin has directly spoken out against the Russian president.

The former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday called on Russians to rally around Putin.

Updated

Some of the footage online which reportedly shows armoured vehicles and the military at the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov. It remains unclear what the context of the footage is, but it has been confirmed that an armed rebellion against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s regime is ongoing:

The Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, said on Saturday his forces were ready to help put down a mutiny by the Wagner mercenary chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and to use harsh methods if necessary.

Kadyrov in a statement called Prigozhin’s behaviour “a knife in the back” and called on Russian soldiers not to give in to any “provocations”.

The Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, has strengthened security on the Russian border and urged Estonians not to travel to any part of Russia.

She tweeted: “Estonia is closely following the development of the situation in Russia and exchanging information with allies.”

Updated

The governor of Russia’s Voronezh region said on Saturday that the army was taking “necessary military measures” in the region as part of a counter-terrorist operation declared after an armed mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group.

Earlier on Saturday, a Russian security source told Reuters that Wagner fighters had taken control of military facilities in the city of Voronezh, about 500km (310 miles) south of Moscow. Reuters said it could not independently confirm that assertion.

A Ukrainian newspaper reported the Russian air force had struck a highway along which Wagner PMC units were moving.

The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said on Saturday that the rebellion by the Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, showed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was backfiring against Vladimir Putin.

Meloni “is following closely the events unfolding in Russia, which show how its aggression against Ukraine is causing instability within the Russian Federation,” Meloni’s office said in a statement.

Updated

Wagner forces 'ready to die' in uprising, Prigozhin says

Yevgeny Prigozhin said the members of his Wagner group, who have launched an armed rebellion, were “ready to die”, in a message posted to Telegram on Saturday morning.

In a string of audio messages, the leader of the mercenary fighters vowed to topple Russia’s military leadership.

“All of us are ready to die. All 25,000, and then another 25,000,” he said. “We are dying for the Russian people.”

He added: “We are saving Russia.”

The Russian-installed heads of Ukrainian regions occupied by Moscow on Saturday expressed support for President Vladimir Putin as Russia faced the extraordinary mutiny.

“The Kherson region and the people of Kherson completely support our president!”, the Russian-installed head of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region said on Telegram. The Kremlin-appointed head of the part of the Zaporizhzhia region controlled by Moscow, Yevgeny Balitsky, said the territory was “with the president”.

Updated

Footage being shared online appears to show columns of military vehicles moving across the Voronezh region.

The region’s governor, Alexander Gusev, posted on Telegram that the footage was fake.

He said: “There is currently a lot of false information on military vehicle columns moving across the Voronezh region’s territory being posted on social media.

“By Russian law, there’s liability for those who spread messages of this kind. All the instances will be seen to by [Russia’s media watchdog] Roskomnadzor and the regional prosecutor’s office.”

Meanwhile, the Kyiv Post, a Ukrainian newspaper, shared footage which it said showed a banner urging people to join the Wagner PMC being torn down in a Russian city.

Updated

Security forces have reportedly cordoned off the building of the “PMC Wagner Center” on Golden Street in St Petersburg, according to a Russian state-owned domestic news agency.

Security forces are also reportedly raiding the PMC Wagner recruitment centre in the city of Vladimir, the Russian Telegram channel Mash reports. It has not yet been possible to verify the reports.

Germany is closely following events in Russia, where the Wagner mercenary group has claimed control of a key military headquarters in the south, a government spokesperson said on Saturday.

“The government is closely following the events in Russia,” he told AFP.

Updated

The Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, on Saturday called on Russians to rally around Vladimir Putin, after what the Russian president called an “armed mutiny” by the Wagner mercenary group.

Putin has spoken to the Belarus president, Alexander Lukashenko, and informed him about “events in Russia”, according to the Belarusian presidency’s Telegram channel.

The Russian news website Sputnik has reported that a spokesperson for the European Commission said on Saturday that the European Union considers what is happening in Russia to be an internal matter.

The spokesperson told reporters in Brussels that the EU is monitoring the situation.

Updated

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.

Why is Rostov significant and what does this mean for the conflict in Ukraine? Read Jonathan’s piece to learn more:

Updated

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has admitted that the work of his country’s authority is “being blocked” by the armed rebellion against his regime.

Speaking in an emergency televised address on Saturday, Putin acknowledged a “difficult” situation was unfolding in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, where the Wagner mercenary group has taken control of key military sites in an effort to oust Russian military’s top brass.

“There will be decisive measures taken on stabilising the situation in Rostov-on-Don,” Putin said in an address to Russians. “It remains difficult and the work of civil and military authorities in fact is being blocked.”

Updated

The Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said people may be trapped under rubble in the city on Saturday following overnight airstrikes.

The interior minister Ihor Klymenko said missiles had targeted at least five regions across the country. Three people were killed and eight wounded after a high-rise in the capital was struck, he said.

“This is the style of terrorists. The style of Russia,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Klitschko was also speaking on the app.

Ukraine’s military said air defences had destroyed 41 out of 51 cruise missiles, as well as two drones, launched by Russia in the assault.

In a separate post, Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said the damage to the high-rise had been caused by fragments from a downed missile. He added that more than 20 missiles had been shot down around the city.

Three people died due to debris hitting a building in the Solomyansk district after Russia unleashed its latest overnight air strike on Ukraine.
Three people died due to debris hitting a building in the Solomyansk district after Russia unleashed its latest overnight air strike on Ukraine. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian

Updated

President Putin said the armed rebellion was an “attempt to subvert us from inside”, in an emergency message to his nation.

Putin said he spoke to the commander of the southern troops last night, in his televised address.

“Russia will defend itself and repel this inimical move”, he said, according to a Sky News translation.

“We are fighting for the life and the security of our citizens and our territorial integrity.

“It is a question of Russia’s millenial history. This requires the unity of everyone and the consolidation of all elements.

“Everything has to be done in order to put this danger to rest. It is an attempt to subvert us from inside. This is treason”

French President Emmanuel Macron is following the situation in Russia closely, the presidential palace said on Saturday.

“We stay focused on the support to Ukraine,” the Elysee said.

Poland’s president held consultations with the prime minister and defence ministry about the situation in Russia, he said on Saturday, adding that Warsaw was monitoring the situation.

“In connection with the situation in Russia, this morning we held consultations with the prime minister and the ministry of defence, as well as with allies,” Andrzej Duda wrote on Twitter.

“The course of events beyond our eastern border is monitored on an ongoing basis,” he said.

Updated

UK's MoD calls situation 'most significant challenge to the Russian state in recent times'

The UK’s Ministry of Defence has provided an update on the situation in Russia.

The MoD said: “In the early hours of June 24 2023, the feud between Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner group and the Russian MoD escalated into outright military confrontation.

“In an operation characterised by Prigozhin as a ‘march for freedom’, Wagner group forces crossed from occupied Ukraine into Russia in at least two locations.

“In Rostov-on-Don, Wagner has almost certainly occupied key security sites, including the HQ which runs Russia’s military operations in Ukraine.

“Further Wagner units are moving north through Vorenezh oblast, almost certainly aiming to get to Moscow. With very limited evidence of fighting between Wagner and Russian security forces, some have likely remained passive, acquiescing to Wagner.

“Over the coming hours, the loyalty of Russia’s security forces, and especially the Russian National Guard, will be key to how the crisis plays out. This represents the most significant challenge to the Russian state in recent times.”

Updated

At least three people were killed early on Saturday after Russia unleashed its latest overnight airstrike on Ukraine, officials said.

Ukrainian air defence shot down more than 20 missiles around the capital, Kyiv. However, three people died due to debris hitting a building in the Solomyansk district in Kyiv and about 10 were injured as rescue operations are ongoing, said the minister of internal affairs, Ihor Klymenko.

Guardian reporters visited the site of the incident. Some upper floors of the high-rise building were destroyed, with debris in the surrounding streets, as ambulances carried away the injured.

Russian missiles targeted at least five regions across Ukraine. Officials in the south-eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk said eight people were wounded – two of them children – and several buildings destroyed.

Governor Serhiy Lysak said air defences had destroyed nine missiles and three drones but that residential buildings in the regional capital, Dnipro, and an unspecified infrastructure object were hit. Blasts in other cities were reported but no indication of casualties or damage was provided.

A man walks among debris following a Russian air strike
At least three people were killed early on Saturday after Russia unleashed its latest overnight air strike on Ukraine, officials said. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian

Updated

Here is what Vladimir Putin has said so far:

Putin gave an emergency televised address on Saturday as the Wagner mercenary chief leads an armed rebellion:

  • Putin said Russia was fighting “the toughest battle for its future”.

  • He said the Wagner “armed mutiny” was a “stab in the back” to Russia. He called the rebellion treason and said anyone who had taken up arms against the Russian military would be punished.

  • He said he would do everything to protect Russia, that the Russian armed forces “have been given the necessary orders” and that “decisive action” would be taken to stabilise the situation.

  • Putin said: “I will do everything possible to defend my country … And those who have organised an armed rebellion will be held accountable. Those who have been drawn into this, I call on you to stop your criminal actions.”

  • He also told viewers: “Personal interests have led to the betrayal of our country and the cause that our armed forces are fighting.”

Updated

Putin said Russia was fighting “the toughest battle for its future” as the Wagner mercenary chief leads an armed rebellion.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air force said it destroyed 41 Russian missiles and two drones during an overnight air strike.

Updated

Putin has said the Wagner rebellion is a “stab in the back” to Russia in his televised address.

In the emergency televised address on Saturday, Putin said that an “armed mutiny” by the Wagner Group mercenary force was treason, and that anyone who had taken up arms against the Russian military would be punished.

He said he would do everything to protect Russia, and that “decisive action” would be taken to stabilise the situation in Rostov-on-Don, a southern city where Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said his forces had taken control of all military installations

Updated

Putin says in his address to the nation that as Russian president and commander in chief “I will do everything possible to defend my country”.

And those who have organised an armed rebellion will be held accountable. Those who have been drawn into this, I call on you to stop your criminal actions.

Updated

All those who went on the path of treason will be punished and will be held accountable. The armed forces have been given the necessary orders.

Putin says:

What we’re facing now is treason. Personal interests have led to the betrayal of our country and the cause that our armed forces are fighting.

Putin addresses nation

Vladimir Putin has begun a televised address to the Russian nation, saying he is fighting for the life and security of his people and the country needs unity of all its forces.

Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale University and an expert on eastern Europe and the second world war, has tweeted:

All I can say about Russia is what I have been saying for a year: wars end when the domestic political system is under pressure.

Updated

Summary

If you’re just joining us, here’s a roundup of the latest major developments as Russian authorities accuse mercenary force leader Yevgeny Prigozhin of trying to start a “civil conflict”.

  • The head of the Wagner mercenary group claims to have seized control of all military sites in the city of Rostov-on-Don and demanded that Russia’s military leadership come to him after accusing them of killing his forces. In videos posted on social media early on Saturday, Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed he was at the headquarters of the southern military district in Rostov and demanded that defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general Valery Gerasimov come to the city, 1,000km south of Moscow. The videos could not be verified.

  • Russian president Vladimir Putin will give a televised address soon, the Tass news agency cited the Kremlin as saying. Earlier, a spokesperson for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, had said only that the president was receiving round-the-clock updates and that “all necessary measures are being taken”.

  • Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement addressed to Wagner fighters that they had been “deceived and dragged into a criminal adventure” by Prigozhin. In a statement posted on Telegram, the ministry urged them to contact its representatives and those of law enforcement services, and promised to guarantee their security.

Wagner fighters in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday
Wagner fighters in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday. Photograph: Reuters

  • Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said anti-terrorist measures were being taken in the Russian capital, including additional checks on roads, to reinforce security. Authorities also said the M4 motorway, connecting Moscow with the south, was closed to traffic at the border with the Voronezh region due to the movement of a military convoy.

  • Russia’s FSB security service has opened a criminal case for armed mutiny against Prigozhin after the mercenary chief accused the Russian military of targeting his forces and vowed to “destroy” his rivals. In an extraordinary series of audio clips released late on Friday, Prigozhin claimed that a rocket attack in the Russian region of Rostov had killed scores of his fighters, vowing to take “revenge” and “stop the evil brought by the military leadership of the country”.

  • The FSB said Prigozhin’s statements and actions were “in fact a call to start an armed civil conflict on the territory of the Russian Federation and a stab in the back to Russian servicemen fighting pro-fascist Ukrainian forces”. It urged Wagner fighters “not to make irreparable mistakes, to stop any forceful actions against the Russian people, not to carry out the criminal and treacherous orders of Prigozhin, and to take measures to detain him”.

  • Early on Saturday, Prigozhin released another voice message in which he claimed, without offering evidence, that his forces had left Ukraine and were entering the southern Russian city of Rostov. “Right now we have crossed all the border points … The border guards greeted us and hugged our fighters. Now we are entering Rostov,” he said. “If anyone gets in our way, we will destroy everything … We extend our hand to everyone. We move forward, we are going all the way!”

  • Gen Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russia’s Ukraine campaign, released a video address ordering the mercenaries to remain loyal to Putin. “I urge you to stop,” said Surovikin, who was previously understood to be close to Prigozhin. “The enemy is just waiting for the internal political situation to worsen in our country.”

Sergei Surovikin in his video address to Wagner forces on Saturday
Sergei Surovikin in his video address to Wagner forces on Saturday. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

  • Earlier on Friday, Prigozhin had accused Moscow’s leadership of lying to the public about the justifications for invading Ukraine. He dismissed Moscow’s claims that Kyiv was planning to launch an offensive on the Russian-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine in February 2022. Prigozhin said: “The ministry of defence is trying to deceive the public and the president and spin the story that there was insane levels of aggression from the Ukrainian side and that they were going to attack us together with the whole Nato block.”

  • A senior aide to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy described Prigozhin’s actions as a “counter-terrorist operation” and said that “everything is just beginning in Russia”. “The split between the elites is too obvious. Agreeing and pretending that everything is settled won’t work,” Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted. “Someone must definitely lose: either Prigozhin … or the collective ‘anti-Prygozhin’,”

  • The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces has confirmed for the first time that the main force of his offensive reserve is yet to be committed into battle with Russia, saying: “Everything is still ahead.” In an exclusive interview with the Guardian from a military base in east Ukraine, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said the Russian general staff had anticipated where Ukraine’s forces were at their most dangerous but issued a warning to the Kremlin that he was hunting down the lethal weakness in their lines.

Updated

Russia’s anti-terrorist committee has said it is imposing a counter-terrorist regime in Moscow and the surrounding region amid the Wagner group’s apparent mutiny, Reuters reported the state news agency RIA as saying.

The Russian defence ministry building, with anti-aircraft artillery systems atop the roof, in Moscow on Saturday
The Russian defence ministry building, with anti-aircraft artillery systems atop the roof, in Moscow on Saturday. Photograph: AP

Updated

A senior aide to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has described the actions by Yevgeny Prigozhin as a “counter-terrorist operation” and said that “everything is just beginning in Russia”.

“The split between the elites is too obvious. Agreeing and pretending that everything is settled won’t work,” Reuters quoted Mykhailo Podolyak as tweeting on Saturday.

Someone must definitely lose: either Prigozhin ... or the collective ‘anti-Prygozhin’. Everything is just beginning in Russia.

Rostov-on-Don, where Wagner forces have entered and where footage has emerged of armed men in uniforms skirting the city’s regional police headquarters, 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.

Home to about 1 million people, the city is an important river port and is located about 100km from Ukraine and 1,046km south-west of Moscow.

It is the centre of Russia’s southern federal district and where Russia’s southern military district is headquartered.

In Novocherkassk, about 24km north-east of the city’s regional hub, is the headquarters of the 8th Guards Combined Army. It was one of the centre’s of Putin’s military buildup in the lead-up to the invasion of Ukraine last year.

Last month, Russia announced a court in the city would trial five foreign men, including three British nationals, accused of fighting alongside Ukranian forces against Moscow.

Earlier this year, Russian defence personnel began building a water pipeline system to connect to the Rostov region with the eastern Donbas region inside Ukraine.

Russian defence ministry tells Wagner troops they were deceived – report

The Russian ministry of defence is telling Wagner fighters they were “deceived and dragged into a criminal adventure”, the state news agency RIA has reported, according to Reuters.

The ministry called on the Wagner mercenaries to contact its representatives and those of law enforcement services, the Tass news agency reported.

The ministry said it would guarantee their security.

Updated

Reuters has some images that the wire service says show Wagner fighters in Rostov-on-Don.

Fighters of Wagner private mercenary group are deployed in a street near the headquarters of the southern military district in Rostov-on-Don, Russia
Fighters of Wagner private mercenary group are deployed in a street near the headquarters of the southern military district in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. Photograph: Reuters
A Wagner fighter stands guard near the headquarters of the southern military district in Rostov-on-Don
A Wagner fighter stands guard near the headquarters of the southern military district in Rostov-on-Don. Photograph: Reuters
Wagner fighters pose for a picture as they get deployed near the southern military district HQ in the city
Wagner fighters pose for a picture as they get deployed near the southern military district HQ in the city. Photograph: Reuters

Updated

Putin to give televised address – report

Russia’s president Vladimir Putin will give a televised address soon, the Tass news agency has cited the Kremlin as saying.

Yevgeny Prigozhin has called on Russians not to believe what they are being told on state television.

The Wagner chief said in the new video posted on Telegram: “When they tell you that PMC Wagner interfered with work and that’s why something on the front collapsed,” he said, addressing Russians, “things on the front collapsed not for this reason.”

Agence France-Presse reports that Prigozhin also said in the video:

A huge amount of territory is lost. Soldiers have been killed, three, four times more than what it says in documents shown to the top [leadership].

The Guardian has not been able to verify Prigozhin’s claims.

Prigozhin apparently speaking from inside military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, in a screen grab from footage posted on Saturday on Telegram
Prigozhin apparently speaking from inside military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, in a screen grab from footage posted on Saturday on Telegram. Photograph: Telegram/@concordgroup_official/AFP/Getty Images

The mercenary leader said in the video that he was in Rostov-on-Don’s army headquarters, which are a key logistical base for Russia’s offensive in Ukraine.

Military sites in Rostov, including an aerodrome, are under control.

Prigozhi said planes taking part in the Ukraine offensive “are leaving as normal” from the airfield.

Updated

Metrics show that Google News has become unavailable for many users in Russia, according to NetBlocks, a group tracking internet disruption.

Our correspondent Luke Harding has this take on today’s events:

This is a very significant moment. It presents an enormous opportunity for Ukraine. I would expect Kyiv to intensify its counteroffensive. It is hard to know how Russia will respond, but there will be turmoil in Russian military structures, from ground positions to the very top.

It is a bad day for Putin.

Prigozhin claims his forces have taken control of all Rostov-on-Don military sites

Yevgeny Prigozhin says in a new video message that all military sites in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don are under the Wagner mercenary group’s control, Reuters is reporting.

The Wagner chief also says in the video, which was posted to Telegram, that he and his men are in the southern district military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don.

Prigozhin says that does not impede Russia’s conduct of what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

The Guardian has not been able to verify his claims.

Updated

Reuters is reporting that video on a pro-Wagner channel on Telegram appears to show Yevgeny Prigozhin talking to top Russian generals in what the channel says is the district military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don.

The video could not be independently verified.

Prigozhin appears to say on the video that his men will blockade Rostov-on-Don and head for Moscow unless Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, and Gen Valery Gerasimov come to them.

Rostov regional governor Vasily Golubev has also said all public events scheduled for this weekend in Rostov-on-Don have been cancelled.

Municipal transport in the city was operational “but the routes around the city centre have been changed”, he said on Telegram.

Suburban transport from Azov, Bataysk and Aksai works regularly. There are temporary restrictions on the Taganrog [port city], as well as on the northern direction from Rostov.

Some more images are emerging of Rostov-on-Don, showing police and armoured vehicles on the streets:

Police block a street
Police block a street. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Police officers took intensive security measures in Rostov-on-Don
Police officers took intensive security measures in Rostov-on-Don. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Armoured vehicles in Rostov-on-Don
Armoured vehicles in the city. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Armoured vehicles block streets in Rostov-on-Don
Armoured vehicles block streets in Rostov-on-Don. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Updated

Rostov residents warned against going into city centre

The Rostov region’s governor has urged residents not to travel into Rostov-on-Don’s city centre and to avoid leaving their homes if possible.

Vasily Golubev posted on Telegram that law enforcement agencies were doing “everything necessary to ensure the safety of residents in the area”.

He said he had given “the necessary instructions to the Rostov city administration and the life support services of Rostov to take the necessary measures to preserve the normal functioning of all city systems”.

I keep the issue under control, regularly listening to reports.

Videos posted on local Rostov-on-Don Telegram channels early on Saturday showed armed men in uniform skirting the city’s regional police headquarters, belonging to the interior ministry. Reuters reported it was not immediately clear who the armed men were.

Updated

The governor of the Lipetsk region in central Russia says the M-4 motorway connecting Moscow with southern regions has been closed to traffic at the border with the Voronezh region, about 400km (250 miles) south of the Russian capital, Reuters reports.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin appears to have sent an armed convoy of his mercenary fighters on a 1,200km (750-mile) drive towards Moscow, having said he intends to oust the military leadership.

The rising tensions between Russia and the Wagner group could affect the outcomes of the Ukraine war as it fractures Russia’s military amid Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces, according to an expert.

Jessica Genauer, an international relations expert at Flinders University in Australia, said:

There’s a lot of uncertainty at the moment as the situation is still evolving, but in any case, it’s clear this is not good news for Putin, and it’s not good news for Russia.

Even if this does create widespread instability, I would see this as part of a far bigger picture that there are cracks starting to emerge in the political domain in Russia as a result of the fact Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has not succeeded in the way Putin expected.

Moscow taking anti-terrorist steps to boost security – mayor

Moscow’s mayor says anti-terrorist measures are being taken to reinforce security in the Russian capital.

Sergei Sobyanin said the city was also introducing additional checks on roads, Reuters reports.

The Institute for the Study of War has also given some useful context about Prigozhin’s focus on Rostov, which is home to the Russian southern military district command – key to Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine.

Following Wagner’s withdrawal from Bakhmut, a large number of Wagner forces likely remained in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and also a Wagner training facility in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai, all of which are close to Rostov oblast.

That would make Rostov “the most viable target of a Wagner armed rebellion,” the US thinktank says. And an attack on the military leadership there would have “significant impacts” on the Russian war effort in Ukraine, the ISW says.

The southern military district’s 58th combined arms army is “currently decisively engaged in defensive operations against Ukrainian counteroffensives in southern Ukraine, and the command centre for the Russian joint group of forces in Ukraine as a whole”, it writes.

Rostov-on-Don is therefore a critical command and control membrane for the Russian army, and any threats to the MoD’s presence are likely to have ramifications on some critical aspects of the war effort.

Updated

Footage shows armed men skirting Rostov police HQ

Videos posted on Russian local Rostov-on-Don Telegram channels early on Saturday showed armed men in uniform skirting the city’s regional police headquarters, belonging to the interior ministry.

Reuters reports it was not immediately clear who the armed men were. The news agency was able to verify the location as the police headquarters building, but not to determine when the video was shot.

Authorities in southern Russian regions had said measures were being taken to ensure public safety after Yevgeny Prigozhin indicated he planned to despatch men to Moscow to oust the military leadership.

Updated

Russian authorities have also stepped up security measures in the Lipetsk region south of Moscow, the region’s governor has said.

Agence France-Presse quoted Igor Artamonov as saying:

A decision has been taken to reinforce security measures in the region. I ask everyone to remain calm.

The Lipetsk region is about 400km (250 miles) south of Moscow.

The city of Yelets in the Lipetsk region
The city of Yelets in Lipetsk oblast. Photograph: Russian Look Ltd./Alamy

Russian authorities said on Saturday that security measures had been tightened in several regions after Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin said his forces had crossed the border from Ukraine and vowed to “go to the end” to topple the Russian military leadership.

In the southern region of Rostov, officials have asked residents to stay home.

Updated

The latest analysis from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) also says Prigozhin’s likely intention is to gain the support of senior Russian officers, seeking to rally them by seizing on longstanding grievances about high Russian losses in Ukraine.

The US thinktank points out that Wagner needs their support because it likely does not have access to the materiel required to militarily depose the Russian ministry of defence (MoD) leadership.

However, it notes, Prigozhin has “likely miscalculated the level of support for Wagner as one of Wagner’s most high-profile alleged allies, [Sergei] Surovikin, called on Wagner personnel to not follow Prigozhin’s orders”.

The ISW says:

Surovikin’s rejection represents a major blow to Wagner’s ability to rally elements of the MoD to its cause, and other high-ranking officers with Wagner affiliations and sympathies are less likely to support Wagner given the public statement from a high-profile senior officer like Surovikin.

Updated

Prigozhin’s apparent rebellion 'unlikely to succeed', says ISW

Yevgeny Prigozhin’s apparent armed rebellion against the leadership of the Russian ministry of defence is “unlikely to succeed” and he may have “wildly miscalculated”, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has said in its latest analysis of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Wagner leader may have thought he would have the backing of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the US thinktank wrote, but that was “extraordinarily unlikely” considering Putin had recently aligned himself more firmly with the Russian defence ministry.

Another possibility was that Prizgozhin’s actions and statements were “a rhetorical overreach in his ongoing dispute with the MoD and his campaign to retain his wavering influence within the Russian information space following the culmination of Wagner’s Bakhmut effort”, it said.

However, this contingency is also highly unlikely, as initial indicators of actual Wagner movements are observable and the Kremlin is not responding to Prigozhin’s statements as only rhetoric.

Updated

The government of Russia’s Voronezh region has urged residents to avoid the M-4 north-south motorway connecting Moscow to southern regions because a military convoy was on the move there, Reuters reports.

The Wagner mercenary chief earlier suggested he planned to oust Russia’s military leadership.

Authorities in the western Russian region of Voronezh have urged residents to avoid the M-4 motorway leading to Moscow, Reuters has snapped.

The regional government said the situation was under control and measures were being taken to ensure public safety.

Updated

Blasts reported in Kyiv and Kharkiv

Ukrainian authorities reported explosions in the capital, Kyiv, and the eastern city of Kharkiv early on Saturday, with the country going on high alert in the face of new Russian missile strikes.

“Explosions are heard in Kharkiv,” mayor Igor Terekhov wrote on social media, while authorities in Kyiv said air defence systems were operating.

An apartment building in Kyiv hit during Russian missile strikes on Saturday
An apartment building in Kyiv hit during Russian missile strikes on Saturday. Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

Agence France-Presse also reports that Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said there were explosions in the city’s western Solomiansky district.

“Fragments of a rocket hit a parking lot,” he wrote on social media, adding that emergency services were on the scene.

Separately, the Ukrainian air force reported missiles heading in the direction of the northern regions of Sumy and Poltava and the central city of Dnipro.

Updated

Summary

Here’s an overview of all the latest major developments:

  • Russia’s FSB security service has opened a criminal case for armed mutiny against Yevgeny Prigozhin after the head of the Wagner mercenary group accused the Russian military of targeting his forces and vowed to “destroy” his rivals. In an extraordinary series of audio clips released late on Friday, Prigozhin claimed that a rocket attack in the Russian region of Rostov had killed scores of his fighters, vowing to take “revenge” and “stop the evil brought by the military leadership of the country”.

Prigozhin in a video released on Friday
Prigozhin in a video released on Friday. Photograph: AP

  • The FSB said Prigozhin’s statements and actions were “in fact a call to start an armed civil conflict on the territory of the Russian Federation and a stab in the back to Russian servicemen fighting pro-fascist Ukrainian forces”. It urged Wagner fighters “not to make irreparable mistakes, to stop any forceful actions against the Russian people, not to carry out the criminal and treacherous orders of Prigozhin, and to take measures to detain him”.

  • Early on Saturday, Prigozhin released another voice message in which he claimed, without offering any evidence, that his forces had left Ukraine and were entering the southern Russian city of Rostov. “Right now we have crossed all the border points … The border guards greeted us and hugged our fighters. Now we are entering Rostov,” he said. “If anyone gets in our way, we will destroy everything … We extend our hand to everyone. We move forward, we are going all the way!”

  • Prigozhin claimed in an audio message that Wagner shot down a Russian helicopter that opened fire on the convoy near Rostov. He did not provide evidence.

  • Security measures have been strengthened in Moscow, with critical facilities taken under increased protection, Russian state news agency Tass reported, citing law enforcement agencies. Unconfirmed footage also appeared to show military vehicles on the streets of the Russian capital.

A view of the Kremlin in Moscow overnight on Friday
A view of the Kremlin in Moscow overnight on Friday. Photograph: AP

  • Emergency protocols were also implemented in the city of Rostov, involving the full mobilisation of the local security services, according to several Telegram channels linked to security service. Pictures published by local media showed armour vehicles appearing on the streets. Baza, a Telegram channel linked to Russian security services, reported that helicopters were seen flying over Rostov.

  • Gen Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russia’s Ukraine campaign, released a video address ordering the mercenaries to remain loyal to Putin. “I urge you to stop,” said Surovikin, who was previously understood to be close to Prigozhin. “The enemy is just waiting for the internal political situation to worsen in our country.”

  • Russian president Vladimir Putin was getting round-the-clock updates from all relevant state security agencies on the measures being taken to thwart an attempted armed mutiny, Tass reported. “All necessary measures are being taken,” Russian state media quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying.

  • Earlier on Friday, Prigozhin had accused Moscow’s leadership of lying to the public about the justifications for invading Ukraine. He dismissed Moscow’s claims that Kyiv was planning to launch an offensive on the Russian-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine in February 2022, saying: “The ministry of defence is trying to deceive the public and the president and spin the story that there was insane levels of aggression from the Ukrainian side and that they were going to attack us together with the whole Nato block.”

  • The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces has confirmed for the first time that the main force of his offensive reserve is yet to be committed into battle with Russia, saying: “Everything is still ahead.” In an exclusive interview with the Guardian from a military base in east Ukraine, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said the Russian general staff had anticipated where Ukraine’s forces were at their most dangerous but issued a warning to the Kremlin that he was hunting down the lethal weakness in their lines.

Updated

Prigozhin has claimed his Wagner forces left Ukraine and were entering the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.

He made the claim in a voice message early on Saturday, without offering evidence.

Prigozhin claims his forces have downed Russian helicopter

Prigozhin claimed in an audio message that Wagner shot down a Russian helicopter that opened fire on the convoy near the southern city of Rostov.

He did not provide evidence to support the claim.

Earlier, locals in Rostov reported that military helicopters were flying over the city.

Armoured vehicles on a street in Rostov-on-Don
Armoured vehicles on a street in Rostov-on-Don. Photograph: Reuters

Updated

Russian governor urges people to stay indoors

The governor of Russia’s southern Rostov region, Vasily Golubev, has told its citizens to remain calm and stay indoors, Reuters reports.

Continuing AP’s analysis from the previous post:

It was a startling turn of events in Moscow – after more than two decades of rigidly controlled rule by Putin, the worst infighting spilled out in the open among his top lieutenants.

And it came as the war in Ukraine reached the 16-month mark and Kyiv’s forces were probing Russian defences in the initial stages of a counteroffensive.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin has been informed about the situation, adding that “all the necessary measures” were being taken.

Prigozhin, 62, insisted his actions were not “a military coup but a march of justice”.

Prigozhin said his men would punish the military leaders who ordered the strike and said his troops would fire at any troops trying to stop them.

“The evil embodied by the country’s military leadership must be stopped,” he shouted in a recorded statement, adding that his forces weren’t seeking to challenge Putin and other government structures.

Justice in the armed forces will be restored, and then justice will be restored in all of Russia.

The defence ministry denied it had attacked Prigozhin’s troops. Then the national anti-terrorism committee, an arm of the Federal Security Service (FSB), announced the investigation against the outspoken millionaire and urged Wagner’s own forces to arrest their boss.

Prigozhin’s statement was a “stab in the back of the Russian troops”, the FSB said, and amounted to fomenting armed conflict in Russia.

The Associated Press has some analysis of the extraordinary situation evolving in Russia today:

For months, the outspoken millionaire head of the Wagner private mercenary force bombarded Russia’s military leaders with expletive-ridden insults in a rift that has weakened the country’s forces amid the war in Ukraine.

Yevgeny Prigozhin accused them of not providing him with munitions in the key battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut.

A video in May showed him standing in front of the bloodied bodies of his slain troops yelling obscenities at defense minister Sergei Shoigu and the chief of the general staff, Gen Valery Gerasimov, calling them weak and incompetent, blaming them for the carnage.

Prigozhin declared:

They came here as volunteers and they died to let you lounge in your mahogany offices. You are sitting in your expensive clubs, your children are enjoying good living and filming videos on YouTube. Those who don’t give us ammunition will be eaten alive in hell!

Defence minister Sergei Shoigu.
Defence minister Sergei Shoigu. Photograph: AP

He even made what some considered a thinly veiled jab at President Vladimir Putin as an oblivious “granddad” thinking the invasion was going well.

On Friday, however, Prigozhin appeared to take a step too far. He accused Shoigu of ordering a rocket strike on the field camps for his mercenary troops, with a huge number of casualties, and said he would move to punish him.

That’s when Russian authorities struck back, with the country’s top counterterrorism organisation launching a criminal inquiry against Prigozhin and calling for his arrest on charges of fomenting an “armed rebellion” over threats to oust Shoigu.

More of this analysis shortly.

Updated

Some Russian officials expressed their unease over tonight’s unprecedented events.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor of the city of Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea, wrote on Telegram:

Like many of you now, I am not sleeping, updating the news feed. Any conflict is bad. A conflict of this level ... is extremely bad.

Mikhail Razvozhayev with Vladimir Putin in Sevastopol in March
Mikhail Razvozhayev, left, with Vladimir Putin in Sevastopol in March. Photograph: AP

Updated

Images from Moscow show empty streets and security cordons:

A police car is seen behind a barrier on the Red Square in central Moscow
A police car is seen behind a barrier on the Red Square in central Moscow. Photograph: Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters
A view of the empty Red Square
A view of the empty Red Square. Photograph: AP
Law enforcement vehicles are seen in front of the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower in central Moscow
Law enforcement vehicles are seen in front of the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower in central Moscow. Photograph: Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters

Updated

Russia accuses Prigozhin of calling for 'civil conflict'

Russian authorities have accused Yevgeny Prigozhin of trying to start a “civil conflict” and called for his detention.

Agence France-Presse reports that the FSB security service’s probe into calls to stage an “armed mutiny” came after the head of the Wagner mercenary group accused Moscow of targeting his forces with deadly missile strikes and vowed to retaliate.

Prigozhin urged Russians to join his forces and punish Moscow’s military leadership in the most audacious challenge to President Vladimir Putin since the start of the offensive in Ukraine last year.

In a statement, the FSB said:

Prigozhin’s statements and actions are in fact a call to start an armed civil conflict on the territory of the Russian Federation and a stab in the back to Russian servicemen fighting pro-fascist Ukrainian forces.

The FSB urged Wagner fighters to “take measures to detain him”.

The Kremlin said Putin had been informed of Prigozhin’s claims and “necessary measures are being taken”.

This is Adam Fulton taking over the blog from Abené Clayton.

Updated

In a separate audio, Prigozhin also claimed, without providing evidence, that Russia’s chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, ordered airstrikes on Wagner’s columns as they advanced on Rostov, but that the pilots “refused to obey the criminal order”.

Prigozhin claims forces are entering Rostov

Prigozhin released another voice message in which he claimed his forces were entering the southern Russian city of Rostov.

He said:

Right now we have crossed all the border points ... The border guards greeted us and hugged our fighters. Now we are entering Rostov.

If anyone gets in our way, we will destroy everything ... We extend our hand to everyone, but don’t spit in it. We move forward, we are going to the end!

Prigozhin said that those who opened a criminal case against him had “no feeling” and understood nothing but “treachery”.

There has been no video footage that would confirm Wagner’s alleged movements.

Armoured vehicles are seen on a street of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia
Armoured vehicles are seen on a street of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia Photograph: Reuters

Updated

White House monitoring the situation in Russia

Following accusations of an armed mutiny in Russia, the White House national security council say they are monitoring the situation, and will be consulting with allies and partners on developments, Reuters reports.

Updated

Putin 'has been informed'

This is Abené Clayton, contributing to the live blog from Los Angeles.

Vladimir Putin has yet to make a public statement about the situation with Prigozhin but has “has been informed about all events,” an anchor for State-run Channel 1 said at the end of a news bulletin.

Michael McFaul, a former ambassador to Russia described Putin’s absence as “striking," in a tweet.

Updated

Twitter picture purporting to show Russian security forces on the streets of Moscow.
Twitter picture purporting to show Russian security forces on the streets of Moscow. Photograph: Twitter

Military generals condemn Prigozhin

Russian security services have moved swiftly against the Wagner boss,
denouncing Prigozhin for “treachery” and ordering the mercenary
group’s fighters to detain their commander.

The defence ministry also published videos with several senior
military generals who urged Prigozhin to stop what one commander
described as a “coup.”

“This is a stab in the back of the country and the president,” general
Vladimir Alekseyev, the deputy head of Russia’s military intelligence
agency, said in a video appeal to Wagner fighters “This is a coup,”
Alekseyev added.

It was not immediately clear if Prigozhin was acting alone. In one
audio message, the warlord claimed to have the support of “the
majority of the army” as well as 25,000 Wagner fighters.

But Prigozhin for now appears isolated, with several former allies
denouncing his rebellion. General Sergei Surovikin, the deputy
commander of Russia’s Ukraine campaign, who is believed to be close to
Prigozhin, released a video address ordering the mercenaries to remain
loyal to Putin.

“The termination of Prigozhin and Wagner is imminent. The only
possibility now is absolute obliteration, with the degree of
resistance from the Wagner group being the only variable,” wrote
Tatyana Stanovaya, the founder of the political analysis firm R
Politik

“Surovikin was dispatched to convince them to surrender. Confrontation
seems totally futile,” she added.

While there was no immediate sign that Vladimir Putin’s hold on power
appeared threatened, Stanovaya argued that the dramatic episode will
likely damage his standing.

“Many within the elite will now personally fault Putin for letting the
situation escalate to such extremes and for his lack of a timely
adequate response.”

Updated

Russian commander tells Wagner troops to obey Putin

The deputy commander of Russia’s Ukraine campaign, general Sergei Surovikin, told Wagner fighters to obey president Vladimir Putin, accept Moscow’s commanders and return to their bases.

He said political deterioration would play into the hands of Russia’s enemies.

“I urge you to stop,” Surovikin said in a video posted on Telegram, his right hand resting on a rifle.

Updated

State-run Channel 1 has broken into regular programming for a special news bulletin. In a short message, the country’s best-known news anchor, Yekaterina Andreyeva, called Prigozhin’s claims of a Russian military attack against his Wagner fighters fake and added that a criminal case has been started against the mercenary head.

Andreyeva also repeated FSB’s statement, urging Wagner fighters to detain Prigozhin.

At the end of the news bulletin, the anchor says: “Vladimir Putin has been informed about all events.”

Who is Yevgeny Prigozhin?

Here is a profile from January of Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former hotdog seller who founded the Wagner group.

Now, Prigozhin’s increasingly brazen criticism has led some to wonder where the ceiling of his ambitions might be.

“People from the FSB are furious about him and see him as a threat to the constitutional order,” said a source in the Russian political elite. “He has this big military group not controlled by the state, and after the war they will want their rewards, including political rewards.”

Others wonder if Prigozhin may have gone too far. His repeated raging at the defence ministry for trying to “steal” his victory in Soledar has at times sounded more like weakness than strength. After all, insiders say Wagner relies on logistics and intelligence support from the ministry of defence to continue its fighting, and Prigozhin relies on Putin’s continued favour to operate at all.

The businessman who knew Prigozhin back in the 1990s, looking at his old associate today, was certain of one thing: Prigozhin does not have an off switch.

“He understands that many hate him in the system … so he knows that if he stops, it could be the end for him. He has no choice. He cannot reverse.”

Founder of Wagner private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin
Founder of Wagner private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin Photograph: Yulia Morozova/Reuters

Updated

Russia says it will prosecute Yevgeny Prigozhin for alleged armed mutiny

Russia said it would prosecute mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin for alleged armed mutiny.

Russia’s FSB security service has urged Wagner Group fighters not to carry out criminal and traitorous orders at Prigozhin’s request and to take steps to apprehend him.

Local agencies carried a statement where the security service said the mercenary chief’s remarks amount to a call to start armed civil conflict in Russia, Sky News reported.

Updated

Footage has emerged on social media of security being stepped up in Rostov.

Security stepped up in Moscow - reports

Security was stepped up on Friday night at government buildings, transport facilities and other key locations in Moscow, the state news agency TASS reported, citing a source at a security service.

Updated

Prigozhin also claimed that the defence minister ordered 2,000 bodies of Wagner fighters to be hidden in a southern Russia morgue.

The mercenary chief went on to claim “the war wasn’t needed to demilitarise or denazify Ukraine” - and was driven by a desire to enrich the ruling elite and said that Moscow could have struck a deal with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the war began.

Defence ministry says Prigozhin allegations are 'untrue'

The Russian defence ministry has described the allegations made by Prigozhin as “untrue and an informational provocation”.

According to the TASS news agency, president Vladimir Putin has been made aware of the latest developments, and “necessary measures are being taken”.

Updated

Opening summary

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, has accused Russian military leaders of targeting his troops.

He said the attack happened after he criticised the country’s top brass on the Telegram messaging app.

In a video, he had said the Kremlin’s rationale for invading Ukraine was based on lies and the “evil” of Russia’s military leadership must be stopped.

Prigozhin has since claimed the country’s defence ministry ordered a rocket strike on Wagner’s field camps in Ukraine which has killed scores of his fighters.

He warned his troops will move to punish defence minister Sergei Shoigu and urged the army not to offer resistance.

Prigozhin said: “This is not an armed rebellion, but a march of justice.”

Updated

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