Wagner mutiny - A mercenary who took part in the attempted mutiny against Russian President Vladimir Putin says he and his fellow fighters "didn't have a clue" what was going on.

 Wagner mutiny: Junior commander reveals his role in the challenge to Putin

A mercenary who took part in the attempted mutiny against Russian President Vladimir Putin says he and his fellow fighters "didn't have a clue" what was going on.

In the space of just 24 hours, the leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, staged an insurrection, sending troops into the southern city of Rostov, then further on towards Moscow.

Wagner fighters rarely talk to the media, but BBC Russian spoke to a junior commander who found himself in the middle of the action.

Gleb - not his real name - had previously been involved in the fighting for the symbolic town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. As the mutiny began, he was resting with his unit in barracks in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region.

Early in the morning on 23 June they got the call to join a column of Wagner fighters leaving Ukraine. The order came from a Wagner commander who Gleb is reluctant to name for security reasons, but who was acting on orders from Prigozhin and the Wagner Command Council.

"It's a full deployment," he was told. "We're forming a column, let's move out."

Gleb says no-one was told where the column was heading, but he was surprised when he realised they were moving away from the frontline.

The Wagner fighters encountered absolutely no resistance, he says, as they crossed the Russian border into the Rostov region.

"I didn't see any border guards," he recalls. "But the traffic police saluted us along the way."

FULL ARTICLE AT: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66247915