Mercenaries nod, boss refuses: Putin describes Prigozhin’s reaction at meetings

The mercenaries nod, but the boss refuses
Putin describes Prigogine’s reaction to the meetings

07/14/2023 02:49 am

After the mutiny of Wagner’s private army on June 24, the President of Russia met with several mercenary commanders in the Kremlin. According to his own statements, he offers to continue fighting in Ukraine. Many would have approved then. Prigozhin was not like that.

According to his own statements, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to keep mercenaries from Wagner’s private army fighting under their own command in Ukraine after a revolt against the military leadership. “Many people nodded when I said that,” Putin said, describing a meeting with Yevgeny Prigozhin’s personal army in the Kremlin, daily Kommersant (Friday) reported.

The article in “Kommersant” refers to a meeting between Putin and 35 people on June 29. So it must be a meeting Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed earlier this week. Prigozhin was said to be in the Kremlin. What he said is still unknown.

“And Prigozhin, sitting in front, did not see it …”

By Putin’s account, Prigozhin ignored his commanders’ nod. “And Prigozhin, who was sitting in front, ignored it and said after being asked: ‘No, the men did not accept such a decision. Putin gave the quotations to a reporter of the daily newspaper on the sidelines of the Future Technologies Forum in Moscow’s World Trade Center. Putin’s revision of the dialogue order and seating arrangement cannot be verified as correct.

Wagner mercenaries fought for months alongside regular Moscow troops in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. He rose to fame after months of fighting for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

In late June, after an alleged attack by Russian troops on Camp Wagner, Prigozhin occupied the city of Rostov-on-Don and sent military columns toward Moscow. Then Putin spoke of “treason”. Shortly before Moscow, after negotiations with the Kremlin, the ruler of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, acted as mediator, Prigozhin ordered to withdraw.

In “Kommersant”, Putin implicitly admitted that the Russian leadership is deliberately relying on an illegal organization in the war against Ukraine. “We don’t have a law on private military organizations… The group exists, but legally it doesn’t exist,” the Kremlin chief said.