believe to be wagner military vehicles. indeed in an area around here, the governor has told local people to stay indoors and all local transport has been cancelled in the area, so that is key in and around voronezh. if we look at google maps, we looked at the traffic parts and you can see here is voronezh and each of these little marks as either a roadblock or something wrong with the road and this is the m4 heading towards moscow. as you can see, that may well be key as the wagner forces, if they want to, make their way up from voronezh to moscow. thank you. the british government s emergency cobra committee will meet to discuss the situation in russia. prime minister, rishi sunak, has been asked about it by the bbc s laura kuenssberg. prime minister, what is happening in russia is clearly significant. do you think this might be a coup against vladimir putin?
and an arms dump in voronezh, has been set on fire. it s a key city on route to moscow, just eight hours from the capital, where security has been tightened. armoured vehicles have been seen on the streets. these are some of the latest pictures that we have received. bbc verify have been able to locate this as in voronezh. in the distance you see a military helicopter flying over an urban area and a blast to the right of the shot which we believe to be an oil depot in the area. 0ur security correspondent gordon corera has this round up of the latest. a mutiny, perhaps even the start of a civil war. mercenaries belonging to the wagner group who d been fighting for russia in ukraine now appear to have seized control of the russian city of rostov on don. residents have been told to stay indoors. 0ne took these pictures which have
to our state, our nation. it is a blow to russia, a blow to our people. and our actions to defend the state against this threat will be harsh. so, who is yevgeny prigozhin? after time injail, he went into the catering business, catching the eye of russia s leader. that led to him becoming known as putin s chef. lucrative military contracts followed. linked to interference in america s 2016 election, he became best known as head of the wagner group, a private military force acting for the russian state. it fought in africa and syria. it grew increasingly prominent and important following last year s invasion of ukraine. prigozhin recruited prisoners to fight in the war,
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
but he became increasingly angry with moscow s military leadership, saying they were using his men as cannon fodder and failing to provide ammunition and support. in recent weeks, his video messages became increasingly angry. there was a sense that a crisis was coming to a head. pictures verified by the bbc show smoke rising close to the city of voronezh. bbc news russian sources say wagner fighters have taken control of military facilities in that city, which lies on the road to moscow. with wagner forces in control of rostov and apparently on the move, there have been reports, unconfirmed, of air strikes. for the moment, it s unclear how this crisis will be resolved and with what level of violence. gordon corera, bbc news.