Russian President Vladimir Putin had a bizarre encounter with mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin who staged an armed rebellion against him, a Kremlin spokesman confirmed on Monday.
The meeting took place June 29 in the Kremlin just five days after Prigozhin issued the most serious challenge to Putin’s authority the country has seen since he came to power in 1999. Putin invited a total of 35 people at the three-hour meeting which is the first confirmed contact between the president and Prigozhin following the uprising.
Leaked photos of Russian mercenary boss in ridiculous disguises
“The only thing we can say is that the president has given his assessment of [Wagner’s] actions at the front during the special military operation [in Ukraine] and also gave his assessment of the events of June 24,” Kremlin spokesman Peskov told reporters, referring to the day of the rebellion.
He added that Putin listened to accounts from Wagner’s unit commanders about what happened during the mutiny and offered them combat and employment options. The commanders “stressed that they are staunch supporters and soldiers of the head of state and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief,” Peskov said. “They also said they were ready to continue fighting for the homeland.”
When asked if Russian Defense Ministry officials were present at the meeting, Peskov said he “had nothing more to say” on the matter, according to a report by RIA Novosti.
On June 24, Wagner mercenaries took over Russian military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don after Prigozhin blamed Moscow forces for killing his troops. As the crisis escalated, Putin accused the mercenaries of treason and ordered the paramilitaries to leave Russia for Belarus or join the Russian Defense Ministry.
For his part, Prigozhin insisted that his actions were not intended to incite regime change in Russia, but rather were an attempt to “bring to justice” senior military commanders for what he considered mistakes during the war in Ukraine.
A deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko finally ended the standoff. The terms of the deal stated that Prigozhin would go to Belarus, but Lukashenko said last week that Prigozhin was in Russia, and another Belarusian official said Wagner’s fighters had not visited a camp in Belarus that had given them been proposed for relocation. Peskov declined Friday to say whether Prigozhin had reneged on the deal.
The status of the warlord in Russia is no longer clear. A criminal case had been opened against Prigozhin for the armed rebellion, but the Federal Security Service (FSB) later said that the investigation had been cut short because “participants in the rebellion ceased their actions aimed directly at committing a crime”.
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