2023-06-27 14:41:27
Russian President Vladimir Putin paid tribute to members of Russia’s military and security forces at a ceremony on Tuesday, during which he sought to reassert his authority after a half-finished rebellion by mercenaries led by Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.
A plane linked to Prigozhin arrived in Belarus, coming from Russia, and is believed to be carrying the head of the special military group abroad, three days after his rebellion was suddenly stopped, while the group’s fighters were advancing towards the capital, Moscow.
The RIA news agency said authorities had dropped criminal charges against the Wagner Group fighters, apparently to fulfill one of the terms of a deal reached late Saturday to defuse the crisis.
Putin said, in front of about 2,500 members of the security forces, the National Guard and the army who gathered in a square in the Kremlin complex, that the people of Russia and its armed forces stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the rebellion of the Wagner Group.
Among those in attendance was Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, whose dismissal was among the demands of Wagner’s fighters during the mutiny.
Putin also asked the audience to observe a minute’s silence for the Russian pilots killed during the mutiny.
Wagner fighters shot down several planes as they marched towards Moscow, although they encountered no resistance on the ground.
Prigozhin, a former Putin ally who had previously been convicted in cases, and whose forces fought the bloodiest battles of the Ukrainian war with heavy losses, said he would go to neighboring Belarus at the invitation of its president, Putin’s close ally, Alexander Lukashenko.
Details of his proposed trip into exile have not been made public, nor has his whereabouts been confirmed in the three days since the mutiny, including whether he was on the plane that was tracked to Belarus on Tuesday morning.
The Flightradar24 website showed an Embraer Legacy 600, with identification codes matching the plane linked to the Wagner Group chief in US sanctions documents, as it approached the landing level near Minsk, the capital of Belarus.
The tracking site first spotted the plane over Rostov, a city in southern Russia that Prigozhin’s forces captured during the rebellion.
Prigozhin was last seen on Saturday night smiling leaving Rostov in a four-wheel drive vehicle, after ordering his troops to withdraw.
In an earlier televised speech, the Russian president said the planners of the revolt had betrayed the soldiers they were leading, making no mention of Prigozhin. He added that he would fulfill the promise he made at the beginning of the week to allow Wagner forces to move to Belarus, sign contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense, or return to their families.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a press briefing today that the agreement that ended the rebellion was being implemented, and that he had no information about Prigozhin’s whereabouts, nor did he know how many Wagner fighters would sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense.
He also expressed his rejection of the idea that Putin’s grip on power had been shaken by the rebellion, describing such ideas as “hysterical”.
protest demonstration
Prigozhin, 62, said he launched the mutiny to save his group after receiving orders to place it under the command of the Defense Ministry.
He said his fighters had halted their campaign on Saturday to avoid bloodshed after they had nearly reached Moscow, and he regretted having to shoot down planes on the way.
“We went on a protest march, not to overthrow the country’s government,” he added in an audio message on Monday.
For his part, Putin confirmed in his speech yesterday evening, which was his first public comment after the rebellion, the killing of Russian pilots.
Putin thanked Russia’s people, army, law enforcement and security services for upholding unity in order to protect the “fatherland,” and said this showed Russia would not succumb to “any blackmail, nor any attempt to sow turmoil at home.”
He added that Russia’s enemies wanted to see the country “stuck in a bloody civil war,” before praising what the pilots had done.
In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country’s army advanced yesterday, Monday, in all sectors of the front, and described it as a “happy day” during his videotaped night speech he made from a train after visiting front-line sites.
Kiev hopes the chaos unleashed by the attempted rebellion will undermine Russia’s defenses as it launches a counter-offensive to retake occupied territory.
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