Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin has claimed he is moving against Russia’s military leadership and that his fighters have entered the country’s Rostov region ready to “destroy everything” in their way – in a stunning series of developments that pits Moscow’s security establishment against a militia leader whose forces have played a pivotal role in the invasion of Ukraine.

"We are going onwards and we will go to the end," Yevgeny Prigozhin, 62, said in an audio message on his Telegram channel.

"We will destroy everything that stands in our way," he added in the most audacious challenge to President Vladimir Putin since the start of the offensive in Ukraine last year.

He later claimed his forces had shot down a Russian military helicopter.

"A helicopter has just now opened fire at a civilian column. It has been shot down by units of PMC Wagner," he said.

“There are 25,000 of us and we are going to find out why there is such chaos in the country. There are 25,000 of us waiting as a tactical reserve and a strategic reserve. It’s the whole army and the whole country, everyone who wants to, join us. We must end this debacle,” he said, in a radical escalation of a longstanding feud with Russia’s military leaders.

Following Prigozhin's statement, security measures in Moscow have been tightened, with critical facilities ‘put under reinforced protection’. The mayor of Moscow said on Saturday that "anti-terror" measures were being taken in the Russian capital.

The Wagner Group (officially called PMC Wagner), is a private military organization run by an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin with tens of thousands of fighters, according to US officials.

The group formed by Dmitry Utkin, who has been previously known as "Putin’s chef" for catering state events, came into existence in 2014 and was involved in the Ukrainian-Russian conflict in 2014 when Russia illegally annexed Crimea.

Initially, it was a secretive organization, have had only about 5,000 fighters - mostly veterans of Russia's elite regiments and special forces. Since 2015, the Wagner Group has been active in Syria, Libya, Africa, and the Middle East. Moreover, the Central African Republic (CAR) has invited the Wagner Group to guard diamond mines, and it is thought to be guarding gold mines in Sudan.

Image source: Telegram