Coup looms in Russia as rogue military group move against Putin

Heavy infighting ensued in Russia after mercenary group Wagner’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin accused Moscow’s troops of attacking his fighters in Ukraine.

In the wake of this, President Vladimir Putin and Russian officials have ramped up security and instated “anti-terrorist” measures in the capital.

Millions of Russians woke up to too many shocked social media messages on Saturday and baffling memes depicting a full-on civil war.

The head of a Russian mercenary army fighting in Ukraine alongside Moscow’s official military forces declared war against the Russian Ministry of Defense, claiming that Russia’s war in Ukraine was all the result of a giant plot by defence bureaucrats to mislead Russian President Vladimir Putin into a pointless conflict.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, also claims that Russian government forces struck his men and inflicted numerous casualties. The Russian Defense Ministry denies any involvement with the strike, but Prigozhin has gone, literally, on the warpath, claiming that he will march into the southern Russian city of Rostov and onward if necessary to topple the corrupt officials leading the Russian Defense Ministry and military high command. He is asking Russian police and military forces to stand aside while he gets “justice” for his troops.

The Russian government, which has long welcomed Prigozhin’s assistance in conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, has apparently had enough of all this, especially now that Prigozhin is dismantling the Kremlin’s rationalizations for the war, and by extension, making Putin look like a fool or a liar or both. The Russian security service has opened a criminal case against Prigozhin for instigating a coup and issued a warrant for his arrest, something they could do only with Putin’s approval.

Police and some military forces in Rostov and Moscow are reportedly on alert, and the White House says it is monitoring the situation.