In videos posted on social media early on Saturday, Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that he was at the headquarters of the Southern Military District (SMD) in Rostov and demanded that defence minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general Valery Gerasimov come to the city, 1,000 kilometres south of Moscow. The videos could not be verified.

“We have arrived here, we want to receive the chief of the general staff and Shoigu,” Prigozhin said in one video, seated between two senior Russian generals. “Unless they come, we’ll be here, we’ll blockade the city of Rostov and head for Moscow.”