Fighters loyal to Russia’s Wagner mercenary group will stop their advance towards Moscow to avoid a devastating civil conflict, the group’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday.
In a voice recording posted to his Telegram channel, Prigozhin said his troops had got within 200 kilometers of Moscow in a single day, but that they would now stand down.
“During this time we did not spill a single drop of blood of our fighters,” he said. “Taking responsibility for the fact that Russian blood will be shed — on one side — we will turn our columns around and go in the opposite direction to field camps, according to the plan,” he said.
Moments earlier, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko issued a statement claiming he held talks with the outspoken oligarch throughout the day.
“As a result, they came to agreements on the inadmissibility of unleashing a bloody massacre on the territory of Russia,” the message from his office read.
“Yevgeny Prigozhin accepted the proposal of the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, to stop the movement of armed personnel of the Wagner company inside Russia, and take additional steps to de-escalate tensions.”
“At the moment there is an completely constructive and acceptable option of resolving the situation, with security guarantees for the Wagner PMC fighters on the table,” the press release claimed.
Wagner mercenaries seized the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don early on Saturday and had reportedly pushed into Voronezh, 500 kilometers north. A state of emergency has been declared in Moscow amid speculation the group’s soldiers were racing up the main highway toward the capital.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Prigozhin’s actions could recreate “the tragedy of the civil war.”