Russia accused the head of the powerful mercenary group Wagner of mounting an armed uprising and ordered his arrest as the growing animosity between rival Kremlin camps over the war in Ukraine spilled into open conflict.
The Wagner group chief said they are stopping their advance to Moscow to avoid "spilling blood". He had vowed Saturday to take all necessary steps to topple the country's military leadership in Moscow, saying his forces would "destroy everything" in their way.
"We are going onwards and we will go to the end," Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a new audio message after vowing to sideline Russia's military leadership.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin earlier claimed his fighters captured the army HQ in Russia's Rostov-on-Don "without firing a single shot" and claimed to have the support of locals. The Wagner group was said to be "moving across" Lipetsk, a town 400 km south of Moscow, but stopped their movement 200 km away from the capital city.