Timeline: What led to the standoff between Russia and Prigozhin

For many years, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, Wagner’s mercenary leader who led a brief uprising against the Russian military, was a loyal supporter of Russia’s President Vladimir V. Putin.

In recent months, he has steered clear of direct criticism of Putin, even as he increasingly used social media to taunt the Russian military, accuse its leaders of treason and blame them for not supplying his troops with sufficient resources. provided.

But in the past two days he attacked the rationale of Putin’s so-called special military operation in Ukraine, sent his troops to take the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, a military center, and began moving Wagner convoys. towards Moscow. Putin mobilized Russian troops to suppress what he called an armed uprising, and the Belarusian president, an ally of Putin, negotiated a halt to Wagner’s advance.

Here is a look at Mr. Prigozhin’s history and some of the claims he has made:

December 2016

The United States imposed sanctions on 15 Russian entities, including Mr Prigozhin, for their trafficking in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, and in Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists seized territory that same year. The Treasury Department targeted businessmen who were associates of Mr Putin or who were involved in activities that helped Russia’s destabilization of Ukraine.

February 2018

Mr. Prigozhin was one of 13 Russians sued by a United States federal grand jury for interfering in the 2016 presidential election through the Internet Research Agency, a troll factory that spread falsehoods and waged information warfare in support of Donald J. Trump’s campaign.

September 2022

Mr. Prigozhin publicly acknowledged for the first time that he was the founder of the Wagner mercenary organization, whose fighters were deployed in Ukraine alongside Russian troops. Previously, Wagner fighters had operated in support of the Kremlin’s military campaigns in Africa and the Middle East, occasionally fighting against US forces.

October 2022

Mr Prigozhin was one of two powerful supporters of Mr Putin who publicly turned against Russia’s military leadership after it ordered a withdrawal from Lyman, a key city in eastern Ukraine, stressing that the withdrawal was a great embarrassment to the Kremlin.

November 2022

Just a day before the US midterm elections, Mr. Prigozhin sardonically boasted that Russia was meddling in the election.

“Gentlemen, we have been interfering, we are interfering and we will be interfering,” Mr Prigozhin said in a statement from his catering company. “We will do it carefully, precisely and surgically as far as we are able to do it. During our targeted surgeries, we will remove both the kidneys and the liver in one go.”

At that time, Wagner forces were advancing on the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which had been under Russian attack for months.

February 2023

Mr Prigozhin accused two Russian military leaders of treason in a series of hostile audio messages. He claimed that Russia’s Defense Minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, and its top general, Valery V. Gerasimov, withheld ammunition and supplies from his fighters to try and destroy Wagner.

Earlier this month, Mr Prigozhin had said Wagner would no longer recruit fighters from Russian prisons, a practice that had drawn criticism from human rights groups but boosted Moscow’s advance into eastern Ukraine.

May 2023

Mr Prigozhin made a series of inflammatory statements. He again accused the Russian military bureaucracy of starving the Wagner troops of necessary ammunition and threatened to withdraw them from Bakhmut. Days later, he appeared to backtrack on that threat after saying he had been promised more guns.

In late May, Wagner forces said they had captured Bakhmut, a claim it had previously made. Ukrainian officials quickly denied the claim, but acknowledged the city’s loss days later. The Russian state media kept Mr Prigozhin’s name out of coverage of those events.

Earlier this month, Mr Prigozhin rejected a report by The Washington Post that leaked information showed he had offered to share Russian military positions with Ukraine.

June 2023

Tensions between Mr. Prigozhin and the Russian army rose. Mr Prigozhin said Wagner would not comply with an order that would require it to sign a formal contract with the Russian defense ministry by July.

The feud quickly escalated last Friday, when Mr Prigozhin released a 30-minute video describing his country’s invasion of Ukraine as a “racket” perpetrated by a corrupt elite chasing money and glory without concern for Russian lives. He also disputed the Kremlin’s claim that Kiev was about to attack the Russian-backed separatist area in eastern Ukraine when Russia invaded.

“The war was not necessary to return Russian citizens to our bosom, nor to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine,” Prigozhin said, referring to Putin’s initial justifications for the war. “The war was necessary so that a bunch of animals could just shout in glory.”

Mr. Prigozhin also accused Mr. Shoigu, the Russian defense minister, of orchestrating a deadly missile and helicopter attack on camps behind Russian lines in Ukraine where his soldiers camped.

Russia’s Defense Ministry denied the allegations, saying in a statement that reports Mr Prigozhin had posted about alleged attacks on Wagner camps “do not correspond to reality”. His account of the attacks remains unconfirmed.

Putin mobilized Russian troops on Saturday to defend Moscow against what he called an armed uprising by Mr Prigozhin, whose forces had claimed control of Rostov-on-Don and were moving north along a highway to the Russian capital. Then, in a surprising turn of events, Belarusian President Alexsandr G. Lukashenko said he had obtained Mr. Prigozhin’s agreement to halt his troops’ advance. Mr. Prigozhin confirmed that he was turning his troops around.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Mr Prigozhin would flee to Belarus and Russia’s military operations in Ukraine would continue as before.