Following Wagner’s failed mutiny, Vladimir Putin of Russia said on Monday that any effort at “internal turmoil” or “blackmail” would fail and that the West and Kyiv wanted Russians to “kill each other,” according to Al Jazeera.
The armed mercenaries’ Saturday insurrection lasted less than a day. Putin praised the Russian people for their patience and support during a televised speech to the country on Monday, noting that since the beginning of the events, actions were taken on his orders to prevent widespread carnage.
“It was precisely this fratricide that Russia’s enemies wanted: both the neo-Nazis in Kyiv and their Western patrons and all sorts of national traitors. They wanted Russian soldiers to kill each other,” he said, adding “Any blackmail, attempts to cause internal turmoil are doomed to failure.”
“From the start of the events, on my orders steps were taken to avoid large-scale bloodshed,” Putin said according to Al Jazeera.
A contract with the Ministry of Defence or other law enforcement authorities would allow Wagner fighters to continue serving Russia, Russian President Putin promised, according to Al Jazeera. They could even go to Belarus if they so wished.
He also expressed his gratitude to his Belarusian colleague Alexander Lukashenko for mediating between Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner group’s leader, and Moscow.
Our goal was to stop the destruction of Wagner fighters: Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner chief
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner, stated on Monday that the objective of his march to Moscow was to stop the destruction of Wagner’s private military group and to “bring to justice those who, through their unprofessional actions, made a huge number of mistakes during the special military operation”.
He claimed that the march was a show of dissent rather than a coup in an audio message made public on Monday. Prigozhin stated that he wished to save Russian bloodshed when he decided to abandon his march on Moscow.
“We started our march because of an injustice. We went to demonstrate our protest and not to overthrow power in the country,” Prigozhin told in an interview, as reported by Al Jazeera. However, he withheld any information about his current whereabouts or his future goals.
