The owner of the Wagner private military contractor escalated his direct challenge to the Kremlin on Friday, calling for an armed rebellion aimed at ousting Russia's defense minister. The security services reacted immediately by opening a criminal investigation into Yevgeny Prigozhin and calling for his arrest.
Prigozhin posted a series of angry video and audio recordings in which he accused Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of ordering a rocket strike Friday on Wagner's field camps in Ukraine, where his troops are fighting on behalf of Russia.
Russia's chief prosecutor said the criminal investigation was justified and that an armed rebellion charge carries a penalty of up to 20 years imprisonment. “Today they carried out a rocket strike on our rear camps, and a huge number of our comrades got killed,” he said. The Defense Ministry denied attacking the Wagner camps.
Another top military officer, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alexeyev, denounced Prigozhin's move as “madness” and threatened to unleash a civil war in Russia. Members of his government briefed international representatives on the possible threat to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, whose six reactors have been shut down for months. Zelenskyy said he expected other nations to “give appropriate signals and exert pressure” on Moscow.The potential for a life-threatening release of radiation has been a concern since Russian troops invaded Ukraine last year and seized the plant, Europe's largest nuclear power station. The head of the U.N.
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