2023-07-14 10:03:51
Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on July 13, 2023. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared that the Wagner group “simply does not exist” as a legal entity, adding another inscrutable comment to the series of events after mercenaries staged an uprising last month.
“There is no law on private military organizations. It simply doesn’t exist,” the president told a Russian newspaper on Thursday night, referring to the Wagner Group.
Putin gave the Kommersant daily his own version of an event in the Kremlin on June 29 that brought together 35 Wagner commanders, including the group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin. That meeting came just five days after Prigozhin led a surprising but short-lived uprising against the authorities in Moscow.
Russian law enforcement officers stand guard in front of the PMC Wagner Center in Saint Petersburg (REUTERS/Anton Vaganov)
Putin said that at that meeting, Wagner’s boss rejected an offer to keep his elements in Ukraine, where they have been involved in battles, under the leadership of their direct commander.
“Everyone could have stayed in one place and continued to serve,” Putin told the newspaper, “and nothing would have changed for them. They would have continued to be commanded by the same person who was their actual commander before.” At this point he refers to Sergei Shoigu, Defense Minister, with whom Prigozhin had a dispute until June 24.
Putin has said on other occasions that Wagner’s soldiers had to choose between signing contracts with the Defense Ministry, moving to Belarus, or not serving.
Yevgeny Prigozhin and Vladimir Putin (DEF File)
According to Putin, while “many of them nodded their heads” when he offered his proposal, Prigozhin rejected it, saying that “the guys will not accept such a decision.”
This, according to Putin, was “one of several employment options” offered at the meeting.
During the revolt, which lasted less than 24 hours, Prigozhin’s mercenaries rapidly advanced through the southern Russian city of Rostov, seizing the military headquarters without firing a shot before reaching within 200 kilometers of Moscow. Prigozhin described the uprising as “a march for justice” to overthrow military leaders, who demanded that Wagner sign contracts with the Defense Ministry by July 1.
A military column from the private mercenary group Wagner drives along the M-4 highway, which links the capital Moscow with southern Russian cities, with smoke from a burning fuel tank at an oil depot seen in the background, near Voronezh, Russia. June 24, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer/File
The fate of Prigozhin and the terms of a deal that ended the rebellion through an amnesty for him and his mercenaries, along with permission to go to Belarus, remain opaque.
The Wagner members are completing the process of handing over their weapons to Russian forces, the Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.
The Wagner’s disarmament reflects Russia’s desire to neutralize the threat it posed and appears to herald the end of the group’s operations in Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces are staging a counteroffensive.
(With information from AP)
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