Did Putin’s allies flee Moscow?

As soon as the Wagner coup started, Ukrainian social media was full of memes of Vladimir Putin saying ‘I don’t need ammo, I need a ride’ – the inverse of Volodymyr Zelensky’s quip when tanks moved towards Kyiv. But is there any truth in it? Did Putin – or his allies – flee Moscow at news of trenches being dug around the capital, while the Wagner Group were 200km away? The Kremlin says not, but there was plenty of suspicious activity to suggest otherwise.

The independent Russian investigative media organisation Important Stories reported some notable movement: Putin’s personal jet plane, an Ilyushin Il96-300-PU, took off in the direction of St Petersburg shortly after 2:15 p.m. local time. Crediting data taken from the Flight Tracker website, they said the plane then disappeared from radar after 106 miles, in the region of the city of Tver to the north-west of Russia (close to the President’s countryside home).