Prigozhin, Wagner CG, accepts withdrawal proposal

The apparent coup d’état by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, commanding general of the Wagner Group, appears to have self-aborted. After a diplomatic intervention by Alyaksandr Lukashenko, the mercenary general has unaccountably agreed to turn around and return to camp.

Prigozhin gives up within 125 miles of goal

General Prigozhin began what he called his March for Justice on Saturday morning (Russia Time). He secured the city of Rostov-on-Don and captured the military headquarters there. But video from inside Rostov showed nothing more serious than the occasional shots fired (or one bomb set off) for crowd control. Life in Rostov never seemed the slightest bit out of the ordinary.

But elements of his Wagner Group marched north and captured Voronezh and Lipetsk, along the M4 motorway leading toward Moscow. Those elements may, or may not, have set fire to an oil refinery in Voronezh. They definitely rammed and punched through a barricade on the M4 leading to Moscow.

But while this was happening, elements of the Akhmat Force, a Chechen army, were about to enter Rostov-on-Don.

Suddenly everything stopped. Alyaksandr Lukashenko, President of Belarus, apparently mediated direct talks between Prigozhin and Russian Federation President Vladimir V. Putin. As a result of their talks, Prigozhin gave orders to stop – and turn back. The news first broke on Telegram, on Jackon Hinkle’s channel. He reported the negotiation, then the closing of the deal. Hinkle did, however, speculate that the negotiations happened because Ukraine was about to take advantage of the situation. That would suggest Prigozhin hates Ukrainians enough not to want to carry his spat with Putin too far.

Jack Posobiec at Human Events posted as close to a full text of Prigozhin’s voice message as anyone has:

They were going to dismantle PMC Wagner. We began on 23 June with our March of Justice. In a day, we walked to nearly 200km away from Moscow. In this time, we did not spill a single drop of blood of our fighters. Now, the moment has come when blood may spill. That’s why, understanding the responsibility for spilling Russian blood on one of the sides, we are turning back our convoys and going back to field camps, according to the plan.

What next – and how did it begin?

Reports from Rostov and Lipetsk show Wagner troops preparing to withdraw, as Prighozin apparently has ordered. (But not everyone is happy about that! In a since-deleted post, Nicholas J. Fuentes reported that some Wagner fighters expressed dissatisfaction with the retreat orders. But no sign has manifested that any Wagner soldiers are disobeying.

Not a word is coming from the Kremlin, and some sources speculate that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov may soon resign. Prighozin in fact demanded as much before he sent his troops on the march.

Journalist Laura Loomer was speculating, up to the moment of the stand-down, that the CIA had paid Prigozhin to launch his rebellion. She cited the $6.2 billion “accounting error” in aid to Ukraine. On September 10, 2001, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reportedly found $2.3 million “missing.” The next day came the Attacks of September 11, 2001.

Intel Slava Z took note of the losses on the Russian government side: six helicopters and one airborne command post.

It is reported that in total, as a result of the actions of the Wagner PMC , seven aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces were lost, including:

* 3 EW Mi-8MTPR helicopters;

* 1 transport Mi-8;

* 1 shock Ka-52;

* 1 transport and combat Mi-35M; [and]

* 1 Il-22 VzPU (air control post).

Thus, the current daily losses of the Russian Aerospace Forces exceed the tragedy of May 13 in the Bryansk region, when four aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces were lost due to an ambush by the MIM-104 Patriot air defense system.

You know, with such “patriots” of our own, there is no need for any ambushes with American “patriots” along the border. We manage ourselves.