Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday called the organizers of a weekend revolt “traitors” who played into the hands of the Ukrainian government and its allies. The uprising by armed mercenaries, which lasted less than 24 hours, was the biggest threat to Putin’s authority so far.
Putin said the nation stood united and he commended the rank and file mercenaries for preventing the situation from escalating into “bloodshed”.
Earlier in the day, the leader of the rebellion, mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, defended his short-lived uprising. He mocked the Russian military but said he had not attempted a coup against Putin.
Putin did not name Prigozhin in his televised address, but said organizers of the mutiny tried to force the group’s soldiers to “shoot their own.” Putin blamed “Russia’s enemies” and said they “miscalculated”.
The Kremlin also showed Putin’s meetings with senior security, law enforcement and military officials, and earlier in the day authorities released a video showing Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, whom Prigozhin had called for ouster, checking on troops in Ukraine.
Prigozhin said he was acting to prevent the destruction of his private military company, Wagner. “We started our march because of an injustice,” he said in an 11-minute statement, without giving details of where he was or what his plans were.
The feud between the leader of the Wagner Group and the Russian military elite smoldered throughout the war, erupting in a mutiny over the weekend when mercenaries left Ukraine to seize a military headquarters in the southern Russian city of Rostov. They rolled seemingly unopposed hundreds of kilometers towards Moscow before turning back less than 24 hours on Saturday.
The Kremlin said it reached an agreement that Prigozhin would move to Belarus along with his soldiers and receive amnesty. There was no confirmation of his whereabouts on Monday.
Prigozhin boasted Monday that his march was a “master class” on how the Russian military should have conducted the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. He also ridiculed the military for failing to protect Russia and pointed to vulnerabilities that allowed Wagner to march 780 kilometers (500 miles) toward Moscow without encountering resistance.
His optimistic statement made no clearer what would ultimately happen to Prigozhin and his troops under the deal allegedly brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Prigozhin said Lukashenko “proposed to find solutions for the private military company Wagner to continue its work in a lawful jurisdiction.” This indicated that Prigozhin could keep his armed forces, although it was not immediately clear which jurisdiction he was referring to related
The independent Russian news agency “Vyorstka” claimed that construction of a military camp for up to 8,000 Wagner soldiers was underway in Belarus, but the report could not be independently verified. Belarusian military surveillance group Belarusski Hayun said on Telegram on Monday that it had not seen any activity in the area consistent with the report.
Although the mutiny was short-lived, it was not without bloodshed. Russian media reported that several military helicopters and a communications plane were shot down by Wagner troops, killing at least 15 people. Prigozhin expressed regret over the attack on the plane, but said they bombed his convoys.
Russian media reported that a criminal case against Prigozhin was ongoing, despite earlier Kremlin statements, and some Russian lawmakers were demanding his head.
Andrei Gurulev, a retired general and current lawmaker who clashed with the mercenary leader, said Prigozhin and his right-hand man Dmitri Utkin deserved “a bullet in the head.”
And Nikita Yurefev, a St. Petersburg City Council member, said he had filed an official request with Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office and the Federal Security Service (FSB), asking who would be punished for the rebellion, given that Putin made a promise on Saturday morning to address it , to punish those behind it.
It was unclear what resources Prigozhin has access to and how much of his considerable fortune he can access. Police raided his St. Petersburg office during the rebellion and found 4 billion rubles ($48 million) in trucks outside the building. This emerges from Russian media reports, which were confirmed by the Wagner boss. He said the money was intended to pay his soldiers’ families.
Russian media reported that Wagner offices in several Russian cities reopened on Monday and the company resumed recruiting new employees.
In a return to at least superficial normalcy, Moscow’s mayor on Saturday announced an end to the “anti-terror regime” imposed on the capital, as troops and armored vehicles set up checkpoints on the outskirts and authorities tore up roads leading into the city .
The Ministry of Defense released video of Shoigu in a helicopter and then meeting with officers at a military headquarters in Ukraine. It was unclear when the video was shot. This came as Russian media speculated that Shoigu and other military leaders had lost Putin’s trust and could be replaced.
For months prior to the uprising, Prigozhin had insulted Shoigu and Chief of General Staff General Valery Gerasimov with profanity, accusing them of not providing his troops with adequate ammunition in the battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, the longest and bloodiest war of the battle.
Prigozhin’s testimony seemed to confirm analysts’ view that the uprising was a desperate attempt to keep Wagner from being dismantled after all private military contractors ordered all private military contractors to sign Defense Ministry contracts by July 1.
Prigozhin said that most of his fighters refused to submit to the Defense Ministry’s command and that the force planned to hand over the military equipment it had deployed in Ukraine on June 30 after withdrawing from Ukraine and getting dressed in the southern Russian city of Rostov. He accused the MoD of attacking Wagner’s camp, prompting them to move earlier.
Russian political scientist Tatiana Stanovaya said on Twitter that Prigozhin’s mutiny was “not a quest for power or an attempt to overtake the Kremlin,” but a desperate move amid his escalating rift with the military leadership.
While Prigozhin could emerge from the crisis alive, Stanovaya said he has no political future in Russia under Putin.
It was unclear what the cracks created by the 24-hour rebellion would mean for the war in Ukraine, where Western officials say Russian troops’ morale is suffering from low morale. Wagner’s forces were key to Russia’s only land victory in months at Bakhmut.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said on Monday that Ukraine had “gained momentum” in its push around Bakhmut, making progress north and south of the city. Ukrainian forces said they had recaptured Rivnepil, a village in south-eastern Ukraine that had seen fierce fighting.
US President Joe Biden and leaders of several of Ukraine’s European allies discussed events in Russia over the weekend, but Western officials have been reluctant to publicly comment.
Biden said Monday that the US and NATO were not involved in the short-lived insurgency. Speaking at the White House, Biden explained that he was cautious about speaking publicly because he “didn’t want to give Putin an excuse to blame the West and NATO.”
“We made it clear that we were not involved and had nothing to do with it,” he said.
Biden said the US would coordinate with allies to monitor the situation and maintain support for Ukraine.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg agreed on Monday that “the events of the weekend are an internal Russian matter”.
And Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said US Ambassador Lynne Tracy contacted Russian officials on Saturday to stress that the US was not involved in the mutiny.
The events show that the war is “shattering Russia’s political system,” said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
“The monster that Putin created with Wagner, the monster is biting him now,” Borrell said. “The monster acts against its creator.”
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Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and Jill Lawless in London contributed.
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