According to the latest reports as of June 24 evening, armed units of the Wagner's Private Military Company have entered Rostov and at least surrounded the building of the Eastern Military District of the russian army and gained effective control over other law enforcement services. There are reports of their columns moving toward Moscow past Rostov and Voronezh.
While the general dynamics of this conflict are still hazy, there already are interesting details confirmed by visual evidence that provide a perspective on these events – the types of military equipment seen in the streets of Rostov. Social media at this point have enough material to analyze.
Read more: Russian Army Used Ka-52 and Mi-28 Helicopters Against Wager Group, Part of Them Were Downed
For starters, here's the Wagnerites' signature armored vehicle seen in one of the videos, namely the Ural Chekan. It is a sort of "reincarnation" of a Soviet BTR-152 armored personnel carrier. This vehicle had been previously seen used by Wagner Group mercenaries in Africa and also in Ukraine in summer 2022.
Here's one more interesting piece. A hybrid vehicle made of BMP-2 chassis with an additional ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun was spotted on a lowboy truck in a column of mercenaries. This hybrid was earlier engaged in hostilities in Ukraine, too.
If we talk real exotic samples, here's a camera shot featuring an unidentified MRAP vehicle, neither the type nor the combat module on top of it is impossible to find out with the low-quality image at hand. This is definitely not the BMP-97 Vystrel although those were earlier documented as deployed in Ukraine.
Moreover, there were zero reports about Wagner's units ever using armored cars at all. Perhaps these vehicles appeared in Prigozhin's forces as part of an internal project to create his own, "Wagner's" military police deployed as a commandant regiment.
The tank component of the mercenary columns is no less diverse. For at least presumably one and the same column moving toward Rostov features a T-90M Proryv on a lowboy, a presumably taken from storage T-80BV with tactical "Z" marks and Kontakt-1 reactive armor, and even something similar to a T-72B3 with a slat armor cage on top.
As for the T-90M, we remind that one of those russia's newest tanks was seen used by Wagner Group forces near Bakhmut as a stationary firing point.
Among the non-armored vehicles in the Wagnerites' formations, there were infamous UAZ vans and a truck adapted as a platform for carrying S-60 AA guns.
On the other hand, there was an unknown vehicle on a KamAZ chassis spotted. Probably, it provides repair and evacuation functions.
The overall impression is that despite Wagner's forces trying to imitate a "regular army," at the same time, they chose their equipment in such a way that makes them obviously different from Putin's armed forces.
Read more: Two Weeks Before the Coup Prigozhin Visited a Plant for Modernization of MT-LB Vehicles
