A mercenary who took part in an attempted coup against Russian President Vladimir Putin says he and his fellow fighters had “no idea” what was going on.
In the space of just 24 hours, the leader of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, staged a coup, sending troops into the southern city of Rostov, and then marching towards Moscow.
Wagner’s fighters rarely speak to the media, but JEE News spoke to a junior commander who found himself in the middle of the action.
Gleb – not his real name – had previously been involved in the fight for the symbolic town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. He was resting with his unit in a barracks in the Russian-held Luhansk region when the uprising began.
Early in the morning on June 23, he received a call to join the column of Wagner fighters leaving Ukraine. The order came from a Wagner commander whose name Gleb is reluctant to reveal for security reasons, but who was following orders from Prigozhin and the Wagner Command Council.
“This is a full deployment,” he was told. “We’re forming a column, let’s get out.”
Gleb says no one was told where Callum was going, but he was shocked when he realized he was moving away from the front line.
He says that Wagner’s fighters met no resistance at all when they crossed the Russian border into the Rostov region.
“I didn’t see any border guards,” he recalls. “But the traffic police saluted us on the way.”
Channels closely associated with Wagner on the messaging app Telegram later claimed that border guards at the Bugaioka checkpoint had laid down their weapons as Wagner’s fighters arrived.
These channels reportedly shared a photo from the scene showing two dozen unarmed men in camouflage.
As they approached Rostov-on-Don, the fighters were ordered to surround all law enforcement buildings in the city and seize the military airport. Gleb’s unit was asked to take control of the regional offices of the Federal Security Service (FSB).
As they approached the building it appeared completely locked and empty. They flew a drone overhead to check for any signs of life.
Finally after half an hour a door opened and two people came out onto the street.
“They said, ‘Dude, let’s make a deal,'” Gleb recounts. “I said, ‘What’s the point of trading it in? This is our city.’
“So we just agreed that we would leave each other alone. He would come out for a smoke from time to time.”
Journalists in Rostov reported a similar situation with several government buildings in and around the city. Wagner fighters would first fly drones at them and then surround them. No one was allowed to leave, but the delivery courier with the food was allowed to leave.
