Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday thanked the military for preventing a “civil war” during the rebellion by the Wagner paramilitary group last week, and paid tribute to the army pilots killed by the mutineers.
“Together with his brothers in arms, he opposed these riots, the result of which would inevitably have been chaos,” he said. “In effect, it has prevented a civil war,” he added.
The Russian president then called for a minute’s silence for the pilots killed by the rebels while “honorably carrying out their duty.” He again praised “the determination” and “courage” of the country’s military and security services, “true defenders of the Fatherland.”
“You have shown your loyalty to the Russian people,” Vladimir Putin said in his speech, swearing that the work of the police had prevented “the extremely dangerous development” of the situation.
The Kremlin assures that the rebellion was not supported
In the same speech, Vladimir Putin also stated that, according to him, neither the civilian population nor the regular army had supported Wagner’s men in their rebellion.
“The people who were drawn into the rebellion saw that the army and the people were not on their side,” he said.
For his part, Prigozhin claimed otherwise, and some people in Rostov-on-Don, where Wagner’s fighters had occupied the military barracks, greeted them. But it was not possible to know what was the reception of the Wagnerians in the other towns along the route of their march.
The Russian leader also assured that no Russian soldiers engaged in Ukraine had been redeployed to Russia to end the rebellion. “We didn’t have to withdraw combat units from the special military operations area,” he said.
Source: BFM TV
