Belarusian President Alexsander Lukashenko, became yesterday afternoon the protagonist of the tense day lived yesterday in Russia by announcing that the Wagner group will stop its advance towards Moscow. According to a statement released by the presidential press service, the Belarusian leader would have the word of the Wagner chief, Evgueni Prigozhin, after a conversation between the two. According to the note, “an agreement has been reached that it is inadmissible to unleash a bloody massacre on Russian territory” and that “Prigozhin had accepted Lukashenko’s proposal to stop the movement of people from the Wagner group on Russian territory and take additional steps to de-escalate tensions”. The Belarusian president, who had also spoken with Putin, assured that “there is an absolutely acceptable proposal on the table to resolve the situation, with security guarantees for the soldiers of the Wagner group”.
Yesterday dawned with the members of the Wagner group entrenched in Rostov. The Kremlin was hastily preparing a speech by the Russian president that was broadcast live in the morning. Vladimir Putin’s face in his speech to the nation spoke for itself. His televised harangue could be summed up in one word, betrayal. That of a friend, who until yesterday had carte blanche and the presidential blessing for everything he did. Grigori Prigozhin, the father of the Wagner group and until yesterday President Putin’s brother had set out on his behalf. The route that takes him to Moscow to ask for explanations and that has led to a call for unremitting civil war. The fuse that has been lit in Russia, far from going out, continues to be fueled by rumors and anonymous videos on social networks. The first of them said that the Russian president had left Moscow in the direction of St. Petersburg after finishing the speech. According to the Bulgarian journalist Christo Grozev, the head of the Kremlin would have left the Russian capital to guarantee his safety through a flight, whose route was reflected on the internet. Dimitri Peskov, presidential spokesman, was quick to deny it, assuring that Putin was working in the Kremlin. Meanwhile, the ruble fell and airline tickets skyrocketed. As an example, flying from Russia to neighboring Armenia today costs four times more than yesterday. The caravans of cars to enter Georgia have increased the wait at the border posts by several hours, recalling what happened as soon as the mobilization of the population was decreed in September last year. So much so that this Caucasian country has met its Security Council to discuss a temporary closure of the borders it shares with Russia. From the Moscow mayor’s office, its owner, Sergei Sobyanin, asked citizens to reduce their movements around the capital “as much as possible”, declaring tomorrow “non-working day” in order to “minimize risks”. Although some of the municipal services did work hard yesterday on the highways that lead to the city to make them inaccessible in the event that the motorized column of the Wagner group continues on its way to the capital. Yesterday afternoon the army had installed several machine guns that controlled the perimeter of the city. In the towns of Lipetsk and Rostov they have done the same in order to slow down the passage of the Wagner group vehicles, which continued advancing yesterday with little resistance. According to Yevgeny Prigozhin, his army had taken the city of Rostov “without a single shot”, making strongholds there. Several videos posted by anonymous citizens show the use of guns and sounds of explosions in that city, which is completely closed. Fighting has also been reported along the M-4 highway south of the Russian city of Voronezh, located north of Rostov and where Wagner members have also arrived, both towns have more than two million inhabitants. There are other videos of helicopters and a wrecked truck along the road. Other photos posted by Wagner’s pro-Wagner Telegram channels reported that Russian soldiers were seen at a border crossing in Voronezh laying down their arms. The region’s governor, Alexander Gusev, said the Russian military was moving into action in the area. The Russian army would have deployed numerous troops from Ukraine to try to combat Wagner’s advance, although waiting for the guard of the Chechen president, Ramzan Kadyrov, to join as a reinforcement. The Chechen leader, who avoided commenting on what happened on Friday afternoon, did speak yesterday, as soon as Putin’s speech ended, placing his national guard at the disposal of the Kremlin and swearing revenge against Prigozhin, who until yesterday was his ally. “Fighters from the Chechen Republic have already left for the areas of tension. We will do everything possible to preserve the unity of Russia and protect its State!” announced the Chechen, adding that “what is happening is not an ultimatum to the Ministry of Defense. This is a challenge to the State, and in the face of this challenge it is necessary to unite around the national leader: the military, security forces, governors and the civilian population”. Kadyrov could have 20,000 men of his almost Praetorian army ready to come to the aid of Putin, to whom he has always shown his unwavering loyalty, although during his participation in the war in Ukraine he did share some of the criticisms of Wagner’s boss. against the military leadership of the Russian Defense Ministry.
