MOSCOW: The chief of mercenary group Wagner said early on Saturday (Jun 24) that his forces had shot down a Russian military helicopter. 'A helicopter has just now opened fire at a civilian column. It has been shot down by units of PMC Wagner,' Yevgeny Prigozhin said in an audio message. He did not pr
MOSCOW: The chief of mercenary group Wagner said early on Saturday that his forces had shot down a Russian military helicopter.
Videos and pictures posted online, including by TASS, showed armed men surrounding administrative buildings in Rostov and tanks deployed in the city centre. It was not clear who the armed men were. "They conducted missile strikes at our rear camps. A huge number of our fighters, our comrades died," Prigozhin said in a series of furious audio messages released by his spokespeople.
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". A prominent Russian general urged Prigozhin to call off efforts to remove the leadership of Moscow's defence ministry.
Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War said the Wagner chief's attempt to force a leadership change in the defence ministry"is unlikely to succeed" given that Surovikin had denounced his call for rebellion."We are watching," the Ukrainian defence ministry tweeted, while Ukraine's military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said rival Russian factions had begun to"eat each other over power and money".
His forces, bolstered by tens of thousands of prison recruits, played a central role in Russia's capture of the town of Bakhmut in the eastern region of Donetsk, the longest and bloodiest battle of the conflict.
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