5m ago / 8:22 AM EDT
Video shows explosion at Russian oil facility as revolt continues
A video posted on social media that was verified by NBC News shows a massive explosion on Saturday at an oil facility in Voronezh, a city in southwest Russia that is along the route to Moscow.
The Telegram channel for the government of the Voronezh region said that more than 100 firefighters and 30 vehicles were at the scene extinguishing the fire. There appeared to be no victims.
The government did say that they were conducting “a counter-terrorist operation” in Veronezh and Moscow regions as the Wagner Group claims it is marching toward Moscow. “The reason for such measures was an attempted military rebellion,” the statement said.
Veronezh is not far from Rostov and Ukraine’s border, where the mercenary fighters began their armed rebellion.
8m ago / 8:19 AM EDT
Head of Russian foreign intelligence agency says armed rebellion is a unjustifable crime
The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, said on the state-controlled television Tass that an attempt at an armed rebellion is the most terrible crime that cannot be justified.
Naryshkin said at the moment it is clear that the attempt to rock society and kindle the fire of civil war has failed.
12m ago / 8:15 AM EDT
Ukraine’s foreign minister calls for more weapons
Ukraine’s foreign minister made clear that world leaders watching the internal fighting in Russia should see it as a moment to side with his country.
Dmytro Kuleba called on countries to abandon their reservations about siding against Russia and to send weapons to Ukraine.
“Those who said Russia was too strong to lose: look now,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter. “Time to abandon false neutrality and fear of escalation; give Ukraine all the needed weapons; forget about friendship or business with Russia. Time to put an end to the evil everyone despised but was too afraid to tear down.”
26m ago / 8:01 AM EDT
Adviser to Ukraine defense minister says Russia coup ‘inevitable’
From Ukraine’s perspective, an armed revolt in Russia was “inevitable.”
Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov, told NBC News that the Kremlin has lied to the world and its own people so much that “these gigantic lies were certain to implode sooner or later.”
He characterized both sides of the conflict in Russia, the government and the Wagner Group, as “terrorist states.”
“This will, of course, weaken the terrorist states and the winner of this situation will be Ukraine,” Sak said.
But for now, he said Ukraine remains focused on their frontlines, the ongoing counteroffensive and dealing with a massive missile strike that hit Kyiv overnight. He said more than 50 missiles were launched at Ukraine and at least one struck an apartment complex in the Ukrainian capital.
“Three civilians are dead and that’s not all the casualties,” Sak said. We’re still trying to figure out how many more people could have died.”
37m ago / 7:51 AM EDT
Oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky calls on Russians to take up arms
One of Putin’s most prominent critics Mikhail Khodorkovsky has called for regular Russians to take up arms, saying it’s the only way for Prigozhin’s revolt to succeed.
Khodorkovsky said earlier on Saturday that the Wagner “rebellion” was the “strongest blow to Putin’s reputation” and urged regular Russians to help Prigozhin’s cause.
“Prigozhin will be able to survive and reach the Kremlin only if the broad masses of people receive weapons,” he said on Telegram. “People can take up arms that are now literally ownerless. Take it! Will come in handy tomorrow.”
38m ago / 7:49 AM EDT
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev calls for unity around Putin
Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and the deputy secretary of the country’s Security Council, has called for Russians to unite around Putin to “save” the country.
“Division and betrayal is the path to the greatest tragedy, a universal catastrophe,” Medvedev, who has been of Putin’s most trusted allies for years and an ardent war supporter, wrote on Telegram.
“We won’t allow it,” he added.
39m ago / 7:48 AM EDT
Expert: Mutiny exposes weaknesses of Putin’s grip on power
Wagner’s mutiny has exposed the weakness of Putin’s grip on power, Keir Giles, an expert on Russia at Chatham House, an international affairs think-tank in London, said.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin “and the forces with him, are in no position to challenge Putin’s grip on power directly, even if they wanted to. But indirectly, they have already shown the weakness of that grip,” Giles said via text message.
A stand-off between Russia’s security forces and Wagner would hinge on what happens locally, given the mercenary group’s close relationship with Russian military intelligence. Intelligence and other forces deployed to block moves by Wagner towards Moscow could jump either way, he said.
Though the conflict between the Wagner group and the military would not lessen the threat to Ukraine, given Prigozhin’s general support for the war, it would give Kyiv a chance to exploit confusion among Moscow’s troops, he added.
43m ago / 7:44 AM EDT
President of European Council monitoring situation in Russia
President European Council Charles Michel is watching the situation in Russia, though he described it as an “internal Russian issue” in a post on Twitter this morning.
“Closely monitoring the situation in Russia as it unfolds. In touch with European leaders and @G7 partners. This is clearly an internal Russian issue. Our support for Ukraine and @ZelenskyyUa is unwavering,” he wrote.
The European Council is an organization comprised of the heads of the EU member states, as well as the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. It provides political direction to the E.U.
44m ago / 7:44 AM EDT
Russian opposition accuses Wagner chief of hypocrisy
The spokeswoman for Russia’s jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Kira Yarmysh, accused Yevgeny Prigozhin of hypocrisy after he vowed to bring an end to Russian corruption with his revolt.
“Prigozhin refuses to give up and scolds corruption, while he himself is a product of corruption, and for many years was a successful consumer of this system,” Yarmysh said.
A former convict turned millionaire, Prigozhin has been a prominent member of Putin’s entourage and Kremlin’s elite. He was known as “Putin’s chef” for catering state events with his catering business before becoming the head of the Wagner mercenary group.
Navalny is in jail and facing legal action that could see him remain in prison for decades.
1h ago / 7:22 AM EDT
Prigozhin: Putin ‘deeply wrong’ about Wagner’s ‘treason’
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin rejected President Vladimir Putin’s charges of treason on Saturday, saying he and his fighters were the true “patriots” of Russia.
Wagner would not respond to orders to surrender from Putin or the security service “because we do not want our country to continue living in corruption, deception and bureaucracy,” Prigozhin said.
While Prigozhin refrained from taking aim at Putin directly, he accused top military brass of not supplying his forces in Ukraine with enough ammunition, which he said was plundered by bureaucrats.
“[They] were saving it for themselves, for the occasion that’s happened today — when someone is marching to Moscow,” he said.
