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#AceBreakingNews – (REUTERS) Rebellious Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has demanded in a video that Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general Valery Gerasimov come to meet him in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don as Putin goes into Hiding its reported from the Kremlin

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an emergency address the mutiny was “treason”, adding anyone who took up arms against the Russian military would be punished.

Mr Prigozhin said in one video posted on social media by his own press service that he was now at the headquarters of the Southern Military District, which is in Rostov-on-Don.

In another video, posted by the pro-Wagner Telegram channel “Razgruzka Wagnera” (“Wagner’s combat vest”), he was seen sitting between two senior generals, one of them Army Lieutenant-General Vladimir Alekseyev, who had earlier issued a video urging Mr Prigozhin to reconsider his declared drive to oust the top brass.

“We have arrived here, we want to receive the chief of the general staff and Shoigu,” Mr Prigozhin said on the video.

“Unless they come, we’ll be here, we’ll blockade the city of Rostov and head for Moscow.”

Earlier Mr Prigozhin appeared to suggest he had sent an armed convoy on a 1,200-kilometre charge towards Moscow in an unlikely attempt to topple the country’s military leadership.

Russian local officials said a military convoy was on the main motorway linking the southern part of European Russia, bordering Ukraine, with Moscow, and warned residents to avoid it.

Russian authorities have accused Mr Prigozhin of staging an armed mutiny after he alleged, without providing evidence, that the military leadership had killed a huge number of his fighters in an air strike, and vowed to punish them.

The FSB domestic security service said it had opened a criminal case against Mr Prigozhin for armed mutiny, a crime punishable with a jail term of up to 20 years.

The dramatic turn of events, with many details unclear, looked like the biggest domestic crisis Vladimir Putin has faced since he ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine — something he called a “special military operation” — in February last year.

Prigozhin’s feud with top Russian generals

Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu (left) and General Valery Gerasimov have played key roles in the planning and approval of the war in Ukraine.(Reuters: Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov)none

Mr Prigozhin, whose Wagner militia spearheaded the capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut last month, has for months been openly accusing Mr Shoigu and General Gerasimov, of rank incompetence and of denying Wagner ammunition and support in its battles in Ukraine.

As their feud appeared to come to a head, the ministry issued a statement saying Mr Prigozhin’s accusations were “not true and are an informational provocation”.

Mr Prigozhin said his actions were not a military coup. But in a frenzied series of audio messages, in which the sound of his voice sometimes varied and could not be independently verified, he appeared to suggest that 25,000 fighters were en route to oust the leaders of the defence establishment in Moscow.Loading…

Early on Friday, he had appeared to cross a new line in his increasingly vitriolic feud with the ministry, saying Mr Putin’s stated rationale for invading Ukraine was based on lies concocted by the army’s top brass.

About 2am (9am AEST), Mr Prigozhin posted a message on the Telegram app saying his forces had crossed into Russia from Ukraine and were in Rostov.

He said they were ready to “go all the way” against the top brass and destroy anyone who stood in their way.

Putin says Wagner mutiny is ‘treason’

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Mr Putin in his address said he would do everything to protect Russia, and that “decisive action” would be taken to stabilise the situation in Rostov-on-Don.

He said that “excessive ambitions and vested interests have led to treason”, and called the mutiny a “stab in the back”.

“It is a blow to Russia, to our people. And our actions to defend the Fatherland against such a threat will be harsh,” Mr Putin said.

“All those who deliberately stepped on the path of betrayal, who prepared an armed insurrection, who took the path of blackmail and terrorist methods, will suffer inevitable punishment, will answer both to the law and to our people.”

In Washington, US President Joe Biden has been briefed on the Russia situation, a White House spokesperson said.

About 5am (12pm AEST), the administration of the Voronezh region, on the M4 motorway between the regional capital Rostov-on-Don and Moscow, said on Telegram that a military convoy was on the highway and urged residents to avoid using it.

Unverified footage posted on social media showed a convoy of assorted military vehicles, including at least one tank and one armoured vehicle on flatbed trucks. It was not clear where they were, or whether the covered trucks in the convoy contained fighters. Some of the vehicles were flying the Russian flag.Loading…

Footage on channels based in Rostov-on-Don showed armed men in military uniform skirting the regional police headquarters in the city on foot, as well as tanks positioned outside the headquarters of the Southern Military District. Reuters confirmed the locations shown but could not determine when the footage was shot.

In his audio messages, Mr Prigozhin said: “Those who destroyed our lads, who destroyed the lives of many tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, will be punished. I ask that no one offer resistance…

“There are 25,000 of us and we are going to figure out why chaos is happening in the country,” he said, promising to destroy any checkpoints or air forces that got in Wagner’s way.

ABC News: Who is Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner warlord and former Putin ally, accused of mounting a mutiny in Russia?

Yevgeny Prigozhin was once so close to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he earned the nickname “Putin’s chef”.

Now, Russia has opened a criminal case against the mercenary warlord, accusing him of attempting to mount a mutiny against his former friend.

The founder of the Wagner mercenary group says his men have crossed the border from Ukraine into Russia and intend to “go all the way”. 

It’s important to note that the situation inside Russia is extremely murky right now.

There is almost no independent media in the country, and most of the information we have is coming from either the Kremlin or Prigozhin’s frenzied, unverified claims on social media. 

But it is clear that the once close, mutually beneficial relationship between these two powerful men has now spectacularly collapsed. 

Here’s how they got there. 

The boot-thieving, hotdog salesman who entered Putin’s inner circle

Prigozhin’s origins are mysterious, but we know that he was sent to prison in 1981 for a slew of crimes, including robbing a woman of her boots and earrings.

After serving a nine-year sentence, he opened a hotdog stand in St Petersburg, which eventually grew to a business empire that included high-end restaurants and convenience stores.

Almost all of Putin’s closet allies hail from the strongman’s hometown of St Petersburg.

The first sign that Prigozhin had made it into the inner circle came in the early 2000s when he regularly hosted Putin at his upscale St Petersburg restaurant, New Haven. In the early 2000s, Putin started regularly feasting at Prigozhin’s fine dining restaurant in St Petersburg. (Kremlin)none

Putin, who is deeply afraid of assassination attempts, happily ate the meals placed before him by Prigozhin. 

“Putin — as everyone knew — was mistrustful. Especially about food and drink, the easiest way to poison someone, as the KGB well understood,” the Guardian’s Russia correspondent Luke Harding wrote in Shadow State. 

His friendship with Putin led to lucrative catering contracts and business opportunities that made Prigozhin a very rich man. 

But soon Prigozhin was not just making his meals. He was fighting Putin’s wars for him too. 

Prigozhin becomes Putin’s gun for hire 

The Wagner Group was first identified in 2014, when it started backing pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine.

Back then, it was an extraordinarily shadowy organisation that operated mostly in Africa and the Middle East on Putin’s behalf. 

“Moscow disavows any command and control over them to absolve itself of their problematic behaviour, such as egregious human rights violations and abuse of civilians,” foreign policy expert Federica Saini Fasanotti wrote for the Brookings Institute last year.

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“They also provide a proxy tool for military confrontations with the US without directly implicating Russian troops.” 

Made up of about 5,000 men, Wagner was comprised of veterans of Russia’s elite regiments and special forces.

For years, Prigozhin denied all links to the mercenary group, even going so far as to sue a British journalist in 2021 for claiming he was the organisation’s founder.

But the war in Ukraine changed everything for Prigozhin and his ragtag army of hired guns. 

How Wagner changed Prigozhin and Putin’s relationship

When Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, he reportedly believed the capital Kyiv would be under his control by the weekend.

Instead his soldiers were met with fierce resistance from Ukrainian troops, who were well armed by the West. Yevgeny Prigozhin flooded Ukraine with hired mercenaries in September 2022. (Reuters: Yulia Morozova)none

Thousands of Russian soldiers are believed to have been killed in the first months of the war, though exact figures remain elusive.

By September 2022,  Putin was forced to “mobilise” 300,000 civilians into the war effort to avoid total defeat. 

That same month, Prigozhin came out of the shadows and identified himself as the Wagner chief. 

Camera in tow, he went to prisons across Russia and offered the men there a choice: Fight for him in Ukraine in exchange for their freedom.

Last year, about 80 per cent of Wagner’s estimated 50,000 troops in Ukraine were ex-prisoners. 

The former convicts were also largely treated as cannon fodder, according to the White House, accounting for 90 per cent of the group’s casualties. 

But as Wagner’s brutal war tactics began to pay off, Prigozhin started demanding recognition. 

In recent months, he has repeatedly accused Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, of incompetence and of deliberately undersupplying his men in Ukraine.

The man who once denied he had anything to do with Wagner, started posting fiery videos on social media site Telegram, blasting Russia’s military. In a graphic video, Prigozhin stood in a field of bodies, ranting about the lack of supplies given to Wagner in Ukraine. 

“Shoigu! Where are the f***ing shells!” Prigozhin screamed in one missive.

“They came here as volunteers and died so you could gorge yourselves in your offices.” 

While Prigozhin was careful to avoid directly criticising Putin, the Kremlin clearly became fed up with him this month and made a move to shut him down. 

One decision appears to push Prigozhin across the red line 

Earlier this month, Russia’s defence ministry made a decision that was sure to send Prigozhin into a rage. 

They demanded all Wagner mercenaries sign contracts before July 1 to bring them under the control of the Russian military.

Prigozhin refused. 

“Wagner will not sign any contracts with Shoigu. [He] cannot properly manage military formation,” he said. 

While Putin has publicly stayed above the fray, he indicated to a group of Russian journalists that he supported the defence ministry’s demand. 

“This has to be done and it has to be done as quickly as possible,” he said.

Prigozhin insists today’s events are not a coup “but a march of justice”.

He said his 25,000-strong force is “ready to die” as he vows to challenge Russia’s military leadership.

“We are dying for the Russian people,” he said in a video message. 

Meanwhile, the Kremlin appears determined to send Prigozhin back to where his journey started: A Russian jail cell.