Mutiny by Prigozhin's fighters was carefully planned – military expert Selezniov

He spoke about this on Espreso TV.

"I would like to draw attention to the fact that this event, performed by Prigozhin's fighters, has been carefully planned. After all, look at the quality of preparation of the combat support for the movement of Wagner's columns, they have air defence systems, as well as systems of various tactical levels. At least the Pantsir-S anti-aircraft gun system is in the columns under the Wagner flag. It is obvious that Prigozhin has nowhere to retreat to, as he has lost his indulgences from Putin. However, we are only speculating based on public information, and we do not know what is happening behind the scenes," the military expert said.

Vladyslav Selezniov noted the opinion of one of the experts that Putin may be trying to absorb the dissatisfied elite club of the Russian Federation, so Prigozhin acts as a marker that all dissatisfied elite representatives are guided by. Accordingly, in this way, Putin can identify and eliminate them.

"However, is Putin really ready to take losses under such circumstances? After all, the Russians are losing not only combat helicopters, but also an oil refinery in Voronezh. Quite serious clashes continue. Prigozhin is not giving in, and he has at least two high-ranking Russian army officials in captivity, Deputy Defence Minister General Yevkurov and Deputy Chief of the General Staff Alekseyenko. In other words, Prigozhin's actions are coordinated, pre-planned and comprehensively secured. His claims that the Wagner soldiers have no shells are not entirely true. They are using the resources at their disposal to act as rationally as possible and very painfully for the Russian regular army, which is not the first time it has shown an inability to respond quickly to challenges," Selezniov commented.

• On 23 June, Russian troops allegedly launched a missile attack on the Wagner PMC base. Wagner's leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said that 25,000 mercenaries were coming to deal with Sergei Shoigu. Read more about the events here.

• On June 24, Putin ordered the Russian armed forces to neutralise the organisers of the armed rebellion.

• BBC reports that Wagner soldiers have taken control of Voronezh.

• Moscow is virtually isolated by Russian law enforcement and military units. All military equipment that has remained in reserve and in the border regions is being brought to the Russian capital