Vladimir Putin Makes First Address To The Nation Since Wagner PMC Uprising

Russian President Vladimir Putin has delivered his first address following the alleged Wagner rebellion.

The 11-minute speech by the head of state was broadcast live to the nation on Russia 24. With a very solemn face, Putin assured that any ‘blackmail’, or attempts to ‘organise internal unrest’ would never succeed.

‘An armed rebellion would still be suppressed’ the president said. According to him, the entire society, as well as parties and religious organisations, took a ‘strong position’, supporting the constitutional order.

Putin accused the organisers of the supposed rebellion of ‘betraying the country’ and also of ‘betraying those who were with them”.

Most Wagner employees were Russian patriots

He added that the vast majority of Wagner PMC fighters were patriots of Russia, and were ‘used in the dark’ during the rebellion. At no point during his address did Putin mention the Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin by name.

The President noted the courage of the Russian Aerospace Forces pilots who died during the Wagner PMC action. Their courage ‘saved Russia’, he emphasised. Putin also thanked all the military and intelligence officers who: ‘stood in the way of the rebels’.

In addition, Putin explained that he tried to avoid bloodshed at all costs. He also thanked Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian President, for his contribution to resolving the conflict with the PMC leadership.

Wagner PMC fighters were invited to join the Russian military

Finally, Putin invited the Wagnerites to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defence or other power structures. If they did not want to do that then their alternative was to cross the border into Belarus, for which he guaranteed their safety.

‘This is exactly the outcome – fratricide – that the enemies of Russia wanted: both the neo-Nazis in Kyiv, and their Western patrons, and all sorts of national traitors’, stated Putin.

He added: ‘They wanted Russian soldiers to kill each other so that military personnel and civilians would die, so that in the end Russia would lose, and our society would split, choke in bloody civil strife’.

The exact location of Yevgeny Prigozhin is still unknown. According to rumours, he was granted a safe passage to Minsk.

Matthew Miller, the US State Department spokesman said the United States would seek extradition of the Wagner PMC founder if he ends up in a country with which there is an extradition agreement. However, America does not have such an agreement with Belarus.

Miller also noted that the American administration had not entered into contact with the Belarusian authorities regarding the attempted rebellion in Russia. According to him, Washington would like ‘the Wagner PMC to cease to exist’.

Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian President, will speak this Tuesday

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko is due to speak to the media this Tuesday 27. According to Igor Tur, an observer for the ONT state channel, no emergency appeal is planned.

“Lukashenko is already almost credited with some kind of today’s ’emergency appeal to the nation’. Certainly, nothing urgent is happening in Belarus for Lukashenko to go on the air in the evening”, Tur assured.

Commenting on the message in the unofficial channel of Lukashenko’s press service ‘Pool of the First’, Tur remarked: “The first one will tell everything, answer everything. Very soon! Follow the agenda!”.

After Putin’s address, Channel One also showed a meeting of the president with the heads of Russian law enforcement agencies.

According to Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin press secretary, the meeting was attended by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, FSB director Alexander Bortnikov, head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin, head of the National Guard Viktor Zolotov, FSO director Dmitry Kochnev, and head of the presidential administration, Anton Vaino.

On the Kremlin website, it explained that during the public part of the meeting, the participants gathered: ‘to talk about the tasks that we face, as a result of the analysis of the events that took place in the country’, as reported by gazeta.ru.