Russia is investigating the possible involvement of Western secret services in the mutiny of the Wagner paramilitary group, Foreign Minister Serguei Lavrov said Monday.
Russia’s head of diplomacy told Russian television channel RT that Russia has “structures for this purpose” dedicated to this task.
Lavrov also assured that the paramilitary group will continue to operate in Mali and in the Central African Republic, noting that the organization’s uprising in Russia will not affect relations between Moscow and its friends.
Wagner members work in Mali and the Central African Republic “as instructors and this work will certainly continue,” he stated.
The Wagner group has mercenaries in several countries in Africa, a factor that has raised suspicions about Moscow’s involvement in several conflicts on the continent.
On Saturday, the head of the Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, suspended uprising movements in Russia against military command less than 24 hours after occupying Rostov, an important city in the south of the country before the war in Ukraine. .
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin described the group’s action as an insurrection, saying it represented a “mortal threat” to the Russian state and treason, and assured that he would not allow the start of a “civil war”.
At the end of the day on Saturday, which reported the advance of Wagner troops to about 200 kilometers from Moscow, Prigozhin announced that he had negotiated an agreement with the president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko.
Earlier, the head of the paramilitary group accused the Russian army of attacking its mercenary camps, causing “a very large number of casualties”, accusations that expose deep tensions within Moscow’s armed forces over the offensive in Ukraine.
Source: DN
