The US president, Joe Biden, assured this Monday that his country and NATO had no participation in the rebellion in Russia of the mercenary forces of the Wagner Group.
Biden confirmed that he had a video call with allies over the weekend and that they all agree on the need not to give Russian President Vladimir Putin “any excuse to blame the West” or NATO for the rebellion.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that Russia was investigating the possible involvement of Western secret services in the rebellion by the Wagner paramilitary group.
The head of Russian diplomacy told Russian television channel RT that Russia has “structures for this purpose” of investigation.
At the same time, the US State Department said the US ambassador in Moscow contacted Russian authorities over the weekend to deny Washington’s “involvement” in the Wagner Group rebellion.
The ambassador in Moscow, Lynne Tracy, as well as US authorities who contacted the Russian embassy in Washington, assured on Saturday that “the United States was not and will not be involved” in the events that shook Russia, she told Estado on Monday. Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
Joe Biden added that he spoke with the Ukrainian president over the weekend about the situation and said he intends to meet again with Volodymyr Zelensky this Monday or Tuesday, explaining that it is still too early to assess the impact of the Wagner Group rebellion. . in the Ukrainian war.
“I told Zelensky that whatever happens in Russia, we, the United States, will continue to support Ukraine’s defense and sovereignty and its territorial integrity,” Biden said.
The American leader also said that he continues to closely monitor the situation in Russia.
“We will continue to assess the consequences of the events of this weekend and their implications for Russia and Ukraine,” Biden said.
Wagner Group mercenaries staged a 24-hour armed rebellion led by their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, over the weekend, seizing the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and advancing up to 200 kilometers from Moscow.
The rebellion ended with an agreement brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, which, according to the Kremlin, establishes that Prigozhin go into exile in Belarus, in exchange for immunity for himself and his mercenaries.
This Monday, in an 11-minute audio statement, Prigozhin had already said that he had acted without external support and that the sole objective of his initiative was “to prevent the destruction of the private military company Wagner”, in response to an attack by the forces
Wagner’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, justified the group’s “rebellion” on Monday with the need to “save” the organization, denied having attempted a coup and added that 30 of his mercenaries died in clashes with Russian soldiers.
“The purpose of the march was to prevent the destruction of the Wagner group,” Prigozhin said in an 11-minute audio message, breaking the silence he had maintained since Saturday when he withdrew from the “march on Moscow.”
Wagner’s leader did not reveal where he is, although the Kremlin assured him of the possibility of moving to Belarus.
Source: TSF
