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Wagner mercenary leader issues defiant audio statement as uncertainty swirls after mutiny

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‘We Were Called In for a Meeting and Handed Weapons’: How the Russian Elites Survived the Prigozhin Rebellion

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One top commander has disappeared since a mutiny. Another was killed in an airstrike in Ukraine. Another accused his leadership of treachery after being fired. And a fourth former commander was gunned down while out on a jog in what may have been an organized hit.

The ranks of the Russian military have continued to be roiled by instability in the days since a short-lived insurrection by Wagner mercenaries three weeks ago, as pressures from Moscow’s nearly 17-month war reverberate across the armed forces.

On Wednesday, mystery deepened over the fate of Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the country’s former top commander in Ukraine, who has been dubbed “General Armageddon” for his ruthless tactics, and who has not been seen since the Wagner rebellion.

One of the country’s top lawmakers said, when pressed by a reporter, that the general was “taking a rest.”

“He is unavailable right now,” the lawmaker, Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the Russian Duma’s defense committee, added in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app before hurrying away from the reporter.

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Originally posted by Mikhailoh:
It's too late. if you shoot at the king, you'd better kill him. Prigozhin is a dead man walking.

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At least 10 people died in the crash of a Wagner-linked private plane outside Moscow, according to Russia’s emergency services. Prighozin, who led a failed mutiny in June, was on the plane’s manifest, according to state-run outlet RIA, citing the country’s aviation authority.

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Russia has relieved Gen Sergei Surovikin of his command of the Russian aerospace forces, in the highest-level sacking yet of a military commander after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s abortive mutiny in June.

The extended absence and now removal of Surovikin, a prominent commander, indicates the shock waves sent through the military establishment by Prigozhin’s armed uprising. He sent thousands of troops to seize a military headquarters in the city of Rostov-on-Don and try to march on Moscow to protest against the dismantling of his Wagner private military company.

Prigozhin’s public support for Surovikin, who was seen as an ally of the Wagner militia in the Russian defence ministry, had raised questions of whether he or other senior commanders aided the mutiny or at least had prior knowledge of Prigozhin’s plans.