How Wagner Nearly Acquired Nuclear Weapons At a protest in Mexico, 13 police officers and officials were taken hostage

On June 24, the insurgent Wagner squad led by Yevgeny Prigozhin made their way to Moscow. The reason for this was an attack by the Russian army on Wagner’s military camp on the same day, according to the Wagner boss. With the march he wanted to protest both against this attack and against the dissolution of his Wagner group, which was intended by the Ministry of Defense. Prigozhin said this in a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Monday.

There was no mention, however, that part of the Wagner group had suddenly turned east on June 24, on its way north to Moscow…

Where did the Wagner convoy go?

The first reports about the Wagner convoy circulated on Twitter a day after the uprising. On the one hand, about the war blogger Igor Shushko, on the other hand also about the Russian partisan group «Russian Freedom». According to them, the convoy was heading for the Russian fortified army base Voronezh-45, where nuclear weapons are said to be located. Not only that: the Wagner troops even took control of the army base and stayed there for a while.

The Reuters news agency followed up on this information. Using videos posted online and interviews with local residents, they were able to follow the trail of the convoy turning east. He allegedly got into a firefight with Russian troops in the first village he reached. But then he drove the next 90 kilometers to the town of Talovaya without any incident, according to Reuters. There – 100 km from the army base – the convoy was attacked again, local residents reported to Reuters. His Russian helicopter was shot down.

Reuters doesn’t know what happened next. According to the news agency, Western officials have repeatedly stated that the nuclear arsenal was never in danger during the uprising.

However, in an interview with Reuters, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, Kyrylo Budanov, says otherwise. According to his statements, the Wagner convoy would have reached the nuclear base. He explains:

What did Wagner want at the military base?

According to Budanov, Voronezh-45 stores small nuclear explosives that can be carried in a backpack. Wagner must have been interested in that. The army base is one of the most important storage facilities for this, according to the head of the Ukrainian secret service. Reuters was unable to determine whether such weapons were actually stored there, and Budanov himself has provided no evidence of this. According to a report by UN scientists, Voronezh-45 is one of Russia’s 12 national nuclear weapons storage facilities.

The small atomic bombs, which Budanov says should still be around, are a relic of the Cold War. The US and Russia had even agreed in the early 1990s to remove these weapons from their arsenals. However, some US officials point out that it is not certain whether Russia actually destroyed these weapons. Reuters quotes David Jonas, former chief adviser to the US National Security Administration, who oversees nuclear weapons and radioactive materials around the world:

What could they have done with the guns?

Maybe not so much. Matt Korda, senior research associate and project leader for the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, puts it in perspective to Reuters. It is virtually impossible for a non-state actor to breach Russia’s nuclear security. He doubts that a soldier from the Wagner team can detonate a bomb:

And for this, according to the expert, someone from the 12th Directorate, which is responsible for protecting the Russian nuclear arsenal, is needed.

Amy Woolf, who worked as a nuclear weapons specialist for US lawmakers at the Library of Congress from 1988 to 2022, meanwhile has doubts about the functionality of nuclear weapons:

According to Budanov, the Wagner soldiers failed on an earlier point anyway. They had reached the army base, but they had not reached the weapons:

Did the Wagner soldiers reach the base at all?

According to Budanov’s accounts: Yes. A source close to the Kremlin with military connections also confirmed some of Budanov’s statements to Reuters. Accordingly, a group of Wagner soldiers managed to “penetrate a zone of special interest, which caused unrest among the Americans because nuclear munitions are stored there”.

Another source from Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine cited this as the reason for the hasty end of the uprising, brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

The US has doubts about this state of affairs. In response to a question from Reuters, White House National Security Council spokesman Adam Hodge said:

Other experts also pointed out to Reuters that transporting nuclear weapons would have been time consuming and very likely to have been observed by US satellites.

How could the soldiers supposedly take over the base so easily?

According to Millblogger Igor Sushko, the entire Russian military unit present there defected to Wagner’s side or surrendered. This is said to have been confirmed by sources within the Wagner groups, among others.

Five sources told Reuters the same thing. According to them, Russian military units did not follow the order to resist the Wagners. This was because they were caught off guard or outsmarted, or because they thought the Wagners were acting under orders from the Kremlin. Still others, according to sources, sympathized with Wagner and shared criticism of the Russian Defense Ministry.

What was Prigozhin’s motivation for the uprising?

A few days after the uprising, Prigozhin denied seeking a change of power in Moscow. “We were going to demonstrate, not to overthrow the authorities in the country,” the 62-year-old said in a public statement two weeks ago. Again he repeated his accusation that the Russian Ministry of Defense had shelled mercenary camps. According to him, 30 Wagner fighters were killed.

In addition to the dissolution of the Wagner troop intended by the ministry, this prompted the march on Moscow, Prigozhin said. After accusing Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of attacking his private army’s military camp, he allowed his units to occupy the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. During their advance on the Russian capital, the Wagner forces shot down several helicopters and an airplane; several crew members were killed.

The fact that the uprising in Prigozhin was so suddenly broken down after the negotiations with Lukashenko still raises questions. Igor Sushko believes that Moscow may never have been Prigozhin’s final destination. Instead it was Voronezh-45. He spread his theory on Twitter:

The fact that Putin invited the rebellious Prigozhin for an enlightening talk in the Kremlin on June 29 – 5 days after his uprising – shows that he does not underestimate the power of the Wagner boss. Experts from the US Institute for War Studies ISW pointed out this weekend that Wagner’s army posed a “potential threat” to “Putin’s regime”. According to the ISW experts, Putin is either remarkably confident in Prigozhin’s pledged loyalty or is incapable of taking action against the Wagner forces. They assume that the future of the mercenary army is being negotiated behind the scenes.

It is unlikely that nuclear weapons will play a role in this. But the mere fact that the Wagner group could so easily march into a nuclear base, according to various sources, is like a demonstration of power by the Wagner group, which probably gives Putin food for thought.

With material from the SDA and DPA news agencies.