thank you so much, rich. it s now been just over four hours since we heard that this lightning like advance to kaluga, almost to moscow, had taken a turn and that the wagner mercenary group are retreating. we had a statement saying that this was to avoid bloodshed. i mean, but the scale of this we heard from president putin earlier in the day saying that this was an attempted mutiny, the advance from crimea, rostov on don all the way up to kaluga. i mean, moscow said that the wagner group fighters will not be punished. we have heard had a statement from the kremlin, power goes into will not be punished. any criminal charges against him will be dropped and he will go to belarus. that was from kremlin spokesperson dmitry peskov, who said wagner troops would be returning to their camps. now, let s take a look at the man behind these negotiations, belarusian president alexander lu kashenko. here with president putin. just a few weeks ago, he was the man behind these negotiations that halte
but many say the damage may already be done. vladimir putin has called the actions of prigozhin and his wagner group in the last 2a hours a stab in the back and an attempted mutiny that won t go unpunished. well, across the border in kyiv, ukrainian president volodomyr zelensky said that the days action was a clear sign of weakness in the kremlin. translation: the man - from the kremlin is obviously very afraid and probably hiding somewhere, not showing himself. i am sure that he is no longer in moscow. he knows what he is afraid of because he himself created this threat. and to you, people of russia, the longer your troops stay on ukrainian land, the more devastation they will bring to russia. the longer this person is in the kremlin, the more disaster there will be. for more on this we re joined by our chief international correspondent lyse doucet. i want to talk about the role of
an often brutal private mercenary group working to the kremlin s agenda. it has been operating across the middle east and africa, including syria, libya and mali, allowing putin to project power without being directly involved. but it is in the last year in ukraine that it has really come to the fore. his forces have played a major role in the bloody combat. some of them came from prisons. here is prigozhin recruiting them in return for an early release. but battles like the one in bakhmut have led to growing tension between prigozhin and the regular russian military leadership. he has angrily accused its leaders, like the defence minister shoigu and military chief, gerasimov, of using his men as cannon fodder and denying them vital supplies.
entered after leaving russian occupied territory in ukraine. this march north unravelled over a 24 hour period, and it seemed from an outsider s perspective that it was all happening pretty quickly, thenit was all happening pretty quickly, then it seemed to come crumbling down, we have had information from belarus s president s offers that he spoke to president putin and the wagner leader, and troops were doing an about turn, and the kremlin has now said yevgeny prigozhin of will move to belarus, he was missing for much of the day. we will keep you updated with all the latest hero bbc news. this is bbc news. the headlines. wagner mercenary fighters withdraw from the city of rostov after their leader orders them to return to their bases, in order to avoid bloodshed. the fighters are met
leadership in the war against ukraine. he said his men were on their way to moscow to demand changes but, hours later, he suddenly announced they were turning back, as a deal was struck with the kremlin. earlier, president putin had accused the rebels of betrayal and treason . now he says avoiding bloodshed is more important than punishment. it s been quite a day in russia. first, a rebellion and the spectre of civil war and then suddenly a resolution and a deal for de escalation. tonight s news is dominated by the volatile situation in russia. earlier today, president putin was facing the biggest threat