Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked the nation on Monday for showing solidarity after an armed rebellion declared by the private military group “Wagner” ended less than 24 hours later.
In his first statement after the end of the uprising, Putin also thanked the fighters of ‘Wagner’, who prevented the situation from worsening and turning into ‘bloodshed’. He said that all necessary steps were taken to save the country and its people from insurgency.
Putin blamed “Russia’s enemies” for the uprising and said they had “miscalculated.” The Kremlin (Russia’s presidential office) sought to demonstrate the country’s stability in a video released Monday by officials. tried. In this video, the Defense Minister of Russia is seen taking stock of the security forces in Ukraine.
At the same time, ‘Wagner’ chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said that he was not trying to stage a coup, but was trying to save his private military group from destruction. “We started our march because of an injustice,” he said in a statement. Prigozhin did not say where he is now or what his future plans are.
The tussle between the ‘Wagner’ chief and Russian military officials continued throughout the war, culminating in an uprising at the weekend when the group’s fighters left Ukraine to seize military headquarters in a key city in southern Russia. They started marching towards Moscow without facing any hindrance.
However, their rebellion ended in less than 24 hours as part of an alleged settlement. The Kremlin said it had reached an agreement with Prigozhin, under which he and the group’s fighters would go into exile in Belarus and no prosecution would be conducted against them. There was no confirmation on Prigozhin as of Monday, but a popular Russian news channel reported on the communications app Telegram that the Wagner chief was at a hotel in the Belarus capital Minsk.