Russia deployed 3,000 Chechen troops to defend Moscow from Wagner

About 3,000 elite Chechen troops had taken up positions in Moscow to defend the Russian capital against Wagner mercenary group, the Chechen state broadcaster "Grozny" said, before the group agreed to end its mutiny and return to previous bases.

"The [Chechen] fighters have been at their positions in Moscow since early morning and are ready to carry out any order from Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces Vladimir Putin," it said on Telegram on Saturday.

But the crisis was averted when Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin agreed to call back his armed convoy approaching the capital with the aim of toppling the military leadership, under an agreement brokered by the president of Belarus.

Kremlin said after the deal was reached that Wagner will pull back to its bases, cases will be dropped against Prigozhin and fighters who didn’t join the rebellion would formally join the army.

Although President Putin had earlier vowed to punish those who participated in the mutiny, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the agreement had had the "higher goal" of avoiding confrontation and bloodshed.

Prigozhin called off his troops' advance toward Moscow, pulling Russia back from its most serious security crisis in decades.

The feud between Wagner chief and Russia's military top brass had boiled over on Saturday, with mercenaries capturing a key army headquarters in southern Russia and then heading north to threaten the capital.

For months, the outspoken millionaire head of the Wagner private mercenary force bombarded Russia's military leaders with expletive-ridden insults in a rift that has weakened the country's forces amid the war in Ukraine.

Prigozhin accused them of not providing him with munitions in the key battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut.

A video in May showed him standing in front of the bloodied bodies of his slain troops yelling obscenities at Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and the chief of the General Staff General Valery Gerasimov, calling them weak and incompetent, blaming them for the carnage.

"They came here as volunteers and they died to let you lounge in your mahogany offices," Prigozhin declared. "You are sitting in your expensive clubs, your children are enjoying good living and filming videos on YouTube. Those who don’t give us ammunition will be eaten alive in hell!"

On Friday, however, Prigozhin appeared to take a step too far. He accused Shoigu of ordering a rocket strike on the field camps for his mercenary troops, with a huge number of casualties, and said he would move to punish him.

The Wagner chief’s position was bolstered after his mercenaries captured Bakhmut last month in the Ukraine war’s longest and bloodiest battle, relying on tens of thousands of convicts who were promised pardons if they survived six months of fighting.

Chechen fighters against Wagner mutiny

The Wagner head has previously gravitated toward Ramzan Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed regional leader of Chechnya.

While Kadyrov initially praised Prigozhin and backed some of his criticisms, he later shifted course and criticised him for sounding defeatist.

Kadyrov's lieutenants blasted Wagner's efforts in Bakhmut after Prigozhin made dismissive comments about Chechen fighters in Ukraine.

Kadyrov's top aide, Magomed Daudov, said Prigozhin would have been executed for such remarks during World War II.

On Friday, when Prigozhin vowed to march to Moscow, Chechen leader Kadyrov, a strong Putin ally, said his forces were ready to help put down the revolt by Prigozhin and to use harsh methods if necessary.

Kadyrov in a statement posted on Telegram called Prigozhin's behaviour "a knife in the back" and called on Russian soldiers not to give in to any "provocations."

He said that Chechen units were moving towards the "zones of tension" and would act to "preserve Russia's units and defend its statehood".

Kadyrov, a close ally of President Putin who commands extensive military forces in Chechnya, had previously been seen as a Prigozhin ally, sharing some of the Wagner boss' criticisms of the Russian military hierarchy.

In recent weeks, however, Chechen commanders aligned with Kadyrov had begun criticising Prigozhin's regular outbursts against the Defence Ministry.

Earlier this month, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, DC-based think tank, said in its latest report that Russia had likely ordered Chechens into battle following the withdrawal of Wagner forces from the destroyed city of Bakhmut.