A Kremlin spokesman said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin after his short-lived mutiny.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the meeting took place on June 29 at the Kremlin and lasted three hours. The talks were held just a few days after Prigozhin’s 24-hour rebellion, which started on June 23 and ended on June 24.
“[Putin] invited 35 people — all the squad commanders and the leadership of the [Wagner private military] company, including Prigozhin,” Peskov said, according to TASS. “The meeting took place in the Kremlin on June 29 and lasted for nearly three hours.”
Peskov said that Putin listened to explanations from the Wagner commanders and “offered them further options for employment and further use in combat.” Peskov said he couldn’t share much detail about the meeting but added that Prigozhin and other Wagner commanders pledged their loyalty to Russia.
“The commanders themselves shared their version of what happened, they emphasized that they are staunch supporters and soldiers of the head of state and the supreme commander-in-chief, and also said that they are ready to continue fighting for the Fatherland,” he said.
When the mutiny first ended, according to media reports, Prigozhin agreed to live in exile in Belarus in exchange for having charges against him dropped. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko confirmed on June 27 that Prigozhin traveled to Belarus but recently said the mercenary chief was in Russia.
In a speech delivered on June 26, Putin vowed to uphold the commitment he made to Wagner fighters to end the mutiny, which involved three options: sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry, go to Belarus, or go home to their families. At this point, it’s unclear what the fate of most Wagner fighters will be or what role Prigozhin will fill in the future.
Meanwhile Navalny still slowly dying in jail under false charges.
Not slowly enough.. Hang the little Nazi!
Be careful with your words, brother. I know you don’t mean it. But you might be talking to the Police in the Police State itself, literally! (Sarcasm)
Navalny isn’t a Nazi. He couldn’t possibly be. He’s an important CIA operative and the CIA would never . . . Oh, right. Never mind.
Wow! That’s exactly what you would not expect from a defeated authoritarian dictator fighting with shovels. Burn away all the old books on politics and war! New books are needed to understand what just happened. You still don’t want to negotiate? …Okay, let’s keep provokin! Turn up the volume! NO SLEEP TILL NUCLEAR WAR! (Beastie Boys’ Sarcasm)
We’re being played like a cheap piano. Everyone seems to have an angle on this nonevent, which tells me that NO ONE but Putin and Prigozhin know what’s really going on.
100%, in the worst case scenario, what’s Putin’s got to lose? …Probably Prigozhin.
Prigozhin joins the long line of Mad Russians that populate the historic landscape. He’s the Pugachev of our time.
He killed 12 Russian soldiers! Something here is very wrong??
Larry Johnson has toyed with the idea that this was a fake mutiny, but that the rank and file didn’t know it was fake… and opened fire without orders.
Yes, but it just seems to me too much of a reach. What he intended to achieve is hard to conceive? And in the aftermath where’s the “purge of traitors” or any ‘greater-good’ net whatsoever. When Washington pulls a false flag like 9-11, sacrificing thousands of unsuspecting citizens there’s always a planned pay-out, … here a “bloody shirt” to jingo the country for war with Islam together. And then we see a rigorous thought police to hold the policy to the sticking place. So, for me, it doesn’t compute.
… your thoughts?
If the Brits convinced Prigozhin to mutiny, they lost their leverage when he called it off. That’s my best guess. I don’t actually have enough information to draw any hard conclusions.
“… also said that they are ready to continue fighting for the Fatherland,”
wait, didn’t Russians always refer to Russia as the “Motherland” ?
i thought it was the nazis that referred to Germany as the “Fatherland”
Russia has celebrated a “Defender of the Fatherland” day since 1918
ok
Something is still suspicious about all of this. Why would Putin meet with these folks after Prigozhin’s rebellion? As to what’s happening right now, I’d put more faith in Lukashenko than anyone else, since he can’t seem to keep his mouth shut, but the larger questions about what Wagner was, is, and will be doing for or to Russia is still a mystery. I’ve read many post-rebellion analyses (Scott Ritter, Simplicius the Thinker, Moon of Alabama, Gilbert Doctorow) and nothing adds up, except for Lukashenko’s contemporary accounts.