RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin said he did not doubt the support of Russian citizens during the mutiny caused by the paramilitary group Wagner.
Putin made the remark as he Met Sergei Melikov, the head of the Caucasus Region of Dagestan, who remarked that there was not a single person in Dagestan who did not support the decisions made by the leaders of the Russian Federation over Wagner’s aborted rebellion.
Meanwhile, Putin visited Derbent, Dagestan, and was greeted by an adoring crowd.
People were seen shouting their greetings to the Russian president.
It can be remembered that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed that he had asked Putin not to wipe out Wagner Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin amid Wagner’s mutiny.
“That’s why I thought, we can kill [prigozhin], and I said to Putin, “we can kill him, it’s not a problem,” Pres. Alexander Lukashenko Belarus said.
“If not on the first try, then on the second. I told him [Putin] not to do this.
Because then, there will be no negotiations, and these guys know how to stand up for each other. They fought in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. They will do anything. We can waste them too, but thousands of civilians and those who oppose the Wagnerites will die,” he added.
Putin initially promised to crush the mutiny, comparing it to the wartime conflict that led to Russia’s 1917 Revolution followed by a civil war.
But bloodshed was avoided after reaching an agreement which led to the end of the mutiny and allowed Prigozhin to go to Belarus along with some of his fighters.
Earlier this week, Putin said Russia avoided a civil war. He also called for a minute’s silence to remember the military pilots killed by Wagner forces during the revolt.
“You have defended the constitutional order, the life, security, and freedom of our citizens, saved our motherland from upheavals, and actually stopped the civil war,” Pres. Vladimir Putin, Russian Federation said.
In a confrontation with the rebels, our comrades-in-arms, the pilots died.
They did not flinch and honorably fulfilled the order and their military duty.
I ask you to honor their memory with a moment of silence.
In a meeting with military commanders held on Tuesday in the Kremlin, Putin revealed that the Wagner group was fully dependent on the support of Russia and that they were supplied and paid by the defense ministry, and the state budget.
“I would like to point out, I want us all to know this too, the maintenance of the entire Wagner group was fully financed by the state, from the Ministry of Defence, from the state budget. We fully financed this group,” Pres. Vladimir Putin, Russian Federation said.
According to Putin, in May 2022 and May 2023, the Russian authorities paid Wagner 86.26 billion roubles or 1.04 billion dollars for salaries, incentive and insurance payments, and cash allowances for Wagner fighters.
Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is also the owner of the Concord catering company, earned 80 billion roubles or 960 billion U.S. dollars on state contracts in a year by supplying food products to the army.
He also hoped that no one stole anything while fulfilling the contracts, but said that Russian authorities would certainly look into it.
