2023-06-26 20:57:53
According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the insurgent mercenaries of the Wagner Group can join the Russian army or “go to Belarus”. He warned in a public statement Monday night that any attempt at blackmail in Russia was “doomed to fail.” Putin thanked the Russians for their “patriotism” during the aborted Wagner group uprising over the weekend.
“I thank all the soldiers, employees of the secret services, who stood in the way of the insurgents,” Putin said in a speech broadcast on state television on Monday. Everything had been done on his orders to prevent bloodshed. “It took time,” Putin said. “The armed uprising would have been crushed that way.”
If mercenaries and regular troops had fired at each other, it would have benefited Kiev and the West in particular, Putin said. There they had already hoped that Russia would tear itself apart. But Russian society has shown itself to be united in its opposition to the uprising. In the end, the revolutionaries would have recognized this and given up.
The German military expert Nico Lange spoke Monday evening in the ZiB 2 of the ORF of a “gang war” in which the supposedly strong Russian state was “absent”. Lange does not believe in a production. For the security experts at the Munich Security Conference, Putin is “severely damaged.” In addition, the Kremlin boss is the greatest security risk for the West, said Lange on the ORF program.
On Saturday night, mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin made serious allegations against the Russian Ministry of Defense and accused Minister Sergei Shoigu of ordering an attack on a military camp by the Wagner troops fighting for Moscow. He then occupied the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and sent some units of his troops towards Moscow. Their practically unhindered advance on Moscow, which only stopped a good 200 kilometers from the Russian capital because Prigozhin had given up, caused shock waves in the country.
In his speech, Putin tried to maintain the impression that the power and security organs were capable of acting. He commended the courage and self-sacrifice of Russian pilots who were killed while confronting the insurgents. It was the first time that the Russian leadership had thus acknowledged casualties during the uprising.
The Kremlin chief also thanked Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko for mediating in the conflict with Wagner boss Prigozhin. His ex-confidant Prigozhin is said to have found refuge in Belarus after he gave up the march on Moscow on Saturday. Other Wagner fighters could do the same. Putin stressed that his offer of amnesty was valid.
Before the speech, many political observers had expected the dismissal of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who had been criticized for months for the failure of the aggressive war against Ukraine and also had nothing to oppose the Prigozhin uprising. But despite the criticism, Putin – at least for the time being – stuck by Shoigu, also because he is considered a personal confidant of the Kremlin boss.
According to a report by the Interfax news agency, government spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced that Putin would meet with the heads of the security services. The participants in the meeting include Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, the head of the Kremlin administration Anton Vaino, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, the head of the FSB secret service, Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the National Guard Viktor Solotov, the head of the Federal Protection Service Dmitry Kochnev and the head of the Federal Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin.
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