LAST UPDATE | 24 Jun 2023

THE HEAD OF the Wagner force said he has ordered his mercenaries to halt their march on Moscow and retreat to their field camps in Ukraine to avoid shedding Russian blood.

The announcement from Yevgeny Prigozhin appeared to defuse a growing crisis as Moscow braced for the arrival of the private army led by the rebellious commander.

President Vladimir Putin had vowed he would face harsh consequences.

Prigozhin said that while his men are just 200 kilometres from Moscow, he decided to turn them back to avoid “shedding Russian blood”.

He did not say whether the Kremlin has responded to his demand to oust Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Putin’s spokesman insisted the Russian leader was still at work in the Kremlin and had not fled Moscow.

The announcement follows a statement from the office of Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko saying that he had negotiated a deal with Prigozhin after previously discussing the issue with Putin.

⚡️Wagner Group's Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said his mercenaries would stop their march on Moscow and withdraw to military camps.

Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko claimed he held talks with Prigozhin, after which the warlord announced retreat. https://t.co/IAmNLoOcGp

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) June 24, 2023

Prigozhin has accepted Lukashenko’s offer to halt the Wagner group’s advance and further steps to de-escalate the tensions,  Lukashenko’s office said, adding that the proposed settlement contains security guarantees for Wagner troops.

Wagner mercenaries seized an army HQ in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don ”without firing a single shot”, Prigozhin had claimed earlier today.

He said the mercenaries “had not touched a single soldier, we did not kill a single person on our way” and claimed his men had been hit by strikes from “artillery and after that from helicopters.”

In an address to the nation this morning, Putin vowed to defend Russia against the armed rebellion.

The uprising, which Putin called “a stab in the back”, was seen as the biggest threat to his leadership in more than two decades in power.

In his address, Putin called the uprising by Prigozhin, whom he did not mention by name, a “betrayal” and “treason”.

The Russian President said: “All those who prepared the rebellion will suffer inevitable punishment.

“The armed forces and other government agencies have received the necessary orders.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said today that the armed insurrection was evidence of Russia’s inherent political instability.

“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,” he said in statement on social media.

“Ukraine is able to protect Europe from the spread of Russian evil and chaos,” Zelenskyy added.

Zelenskyy accused Putin of throwing “hundreds of thousands into the war, in order to eventually barricade himself in the Moscow region from those whom he himself armed.”

The president had also said that the mutiny had presented a “unique opportunity to Ukraine” and ”the man from the Kremlin is obviously very scared and is probably hiding somewhere”.

Zelenskyy added that Putin has “created this threat himself.”

Yevgeny Prigozhin said the move was a ‘march of justice’ Prigozhin Press Service via AP Prigozhin Press Service via AP

Separately, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Ganna Malyar announced that Ukrainian forces had gained more ground in the eastern region of the Donbas, launching new counteroffensives in several areas.

Numerous western allies of Ukraine had said today that they were closely monitoring developments in the area.

AFP have reported that Putin has had several phone calls with regional leaders, including Lukashenko and the presidents of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

A woman poses for a photo at a Russian armoured vehicle, with writing reading ‘Siberia’, parked in a street in Rostov-on-Don AP AP

In a sign of how seriously the Kremlin took the threat, authorities declared a “counter-terrorist regime” in Moscow and its surrounding area, restricting freedoms and enhancing security in the capital.

With reporting from AFP