wagner group sees that early on as a key objective, they pretty much walked in. they have held it since. they left a reasonable force, we think, in that area. although, at the moment, there is some local opposition from the chechens who are approaching rostov. they are very loyal to the regime. that is sort of developing in the city at the moment. so they have seized the city, they didn t have huge strength there, but they do have their headquarters. most importantly, that headquarters. most importantly, that headquarters and the south controls on the communication. so it s really strategically important. prigozhin isn t a critic of the war, he is a critic of the way it is being fought. he thinks it should be fought. he thinks it should be fought more strenuously than it is. they have no interest in stopping the war in ukraine there, it is continuing but under wagner supervision at this point. there is this flying column that is making its way towards masco and we know that i
military operation is. also, a staging point for going into ukraine. the army uses it for fuel land ukraine. the army uses it for fuel land for ukraine. the army uses it for fuel land for supplies. and indeed, some soldiers land for supplies. and indeed, some soldiers are land for supplies. and indeed, some soldiers are kept there before they io soldiers are kept there before they go into soldiers are kept there before they go into ukraine. that is one of the cities go into ukraine. that is one of the cities the go into ukraine. that is one of the cities. the evil and that would be mentioning as well, and what we think mentioning as well, and what we think is mentioning as well, and what we think is prigozhin and his people went think is prigozhin and his people went in think is prigozhin and his people went in there to take control of that went in there to take control of that the went in there to take control of that. the other one is of course voronezh that. th
number of troops are kept there before they go into ukraine. so the wagner group say they have control of that. they have also moved to the city of voronezh and they did that going up this m4 motorway. this normally would be about an eight hour drive. at the moment, we are getting unconfirmed reports of fighting in voronezh between russian forces and wagner mercenaries. we also, our sources within bbc news russia, so the wagner group may have taken over some key military sites. they have also seen early at those pictures of an oil depot on fire. why is this city important to the wagner group? if you look, rostov on don and moscow, this is halfway between the two cities and it is understood from uk minister of defence, that the ultimate aim of the wagner group could be to make it to moscow. which they were to do may
become wagnerfighters, many amongst those ranks went on to become wagner fighters, so well known in this part of the world. rostov on don is a key city here, kilometres from this area, the ukrainian border and that is where yevgeny prigozhin took his forces to last night. it is important to remind ourselves that he said he was able to take rostov on don with his forces quote without firing a single shot. they then made their way north on this m4 road towards the city of voronezh, that was not such a smooth operation, they said they came under russian air strikes including by helicopter gunships, he did not provide any evidence for that but said that s what happened. the key thing about this city is that it is halfway between rostov on don and moscow, 500 kilometres to voronezh and 500 more to moscow as you can see only map there. we had from the governor in lipetsk earlier on, he said he had seen wagnerfighters in