Minsk announces the arrival of Prigozhin to Belarus, and his group is preparing to deliver its equipment to Moscow
A day after President Joe Biden confirmed that the West had nothing to do with the rebellion carried out by the leader of the Russian “Wagner” group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, last week in Russia, sources revealed that the intelligence services in the United States were able to collect a preliminary picture described as “very detailed and accurate” of the plans. The leader of the group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has already arrived today in Belarus after his rebellion in Russia, last Saturday.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announces the arrival of the leader of the Russian “Wagner” group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to Belarus (AP)
The official Belarusian Belta news agency quoted Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko as saying, “Yes, indeed, today he is in Belarus.” The Russian Information Agency quoted the Ministry of Defense as saying today (Tuesday) that the private military group “Wagner” is preparing to hand over its equipment to the ministry.
Russian President Vladimir Putin paid tribute to members of Russia’s military and security forces at a ceremony on Monday, during which he sought to reassert his authority. Putin told about 2,500 members of the security forces, the National Guard, and the army, who gathered in a square in the Kremlin complex, that the people of Russia and its armed forces stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the Wagner group’s rebellion. Among the attendees was Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, whose dismissal was among the demands of the Wagner fighters during the rebellion. He added that Russia’s enemies wanted to see the country “locked in a bloody civil war,” before praising what the pilots had done.
Tanks belonging to the “Wagner” group are preparing to leave the city of Rostov (EPA)
The Kremlin said today that it disagrees with what it described as the opinion of “pseudo-specialists” that the failed armed rebellion carried out by the private military group “Wagner” at the weekend shook the position of President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin has portrayed the Russian leader, who has been in power since 1999 as either president or prime minister, as having wisely avoided what it described as a “worst-case scenario” by giving talks a chance to reach an agreement that ended the insurgency without further bloodshed.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters the revolt showed how closely Russian society has wrapped itself around Putin in distress. He added, “The level of people’s support … around the president was enormous. These events showed the extent to which society is rallying around the president. In response to a question about whether the Russian president’s position had been “shaken” by the events, Peskov said: “We do not agree with that. There is now great hysteria among specialists, pseudo-specialists, policy experts and pseudo-politicians. It also spreads through some hysterical new media, on the Internet, and so on. It has nothing to do with reality.”
And Biden believed that it was “too early” to reach decisive conclusions after the “Wagner” rebellion, telling reporters: “We are not involved and have nothing to do with these events (…) This is an internal problem” for President Vladimir Putin. He stressed that the Americans and their allies do not want to “give any pretext to Putin to accuse the Westerners or to accuse the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),” stressing at the same time the importance of the Westerners remaining in “complete coordination.”
Meanwhile, American sources reported that the intelligence on the Wagner rebellion was “so classified” that only senior officials in the Biden administration, as well as the “Gang of Eight” in Congress, had access to the most sensitive intelligence issues inside the United States. .
The information was “very restricted” and was shared only with selected allies, including senior British officials, and not at the “NATO” level.
According to this information, it is not clear exactly when Prigozhin will act. However, it turned out that he had decided to proceed with his plan after the Russian Ministry of Defense announced on June 10 that all private military companies, including “Wagner”, would be forced to sign contracts with the Russian army starting in July, provided that they were absorbed mainly from forces of the Ministry of Defense.
Putin when addressing the Russian people regarding the “Wagner” rebellion last Saturday (AP)
Some NATO officials have expressed frustration with the lack of intelligence sharing. “Doing so would have risked exposing highly sensitive sources and methods,” the sources said. It added that Ukrainian officials had not been informed in advance due to concerns about possible interception by adversaries of talks between U.S. and Ukrainian officials.
With everyone acknowledging that Prigozhin’s uprising did not come out of nowhere, American officials have been tracking his growing disagreements with the Russian Ministry of Defense for months. And the American “CNN” television network reported that there were indications that “Wagner was stockpiling weapons and ammunition before the rebellion.”
It quoted US and Western officials as saying that Putin was “simply surprised by Prigozhin’s actions.” And they believed that “if Prigozhin had tried to seize Moscow or the Kremlin, he would have lost decisively,” considering that “this is probably the reason why Prigozhin agreed to sign an agreement with Belarus.” Once Prigozhin launched his insurrection, senior American officials began reaching out to allies and partners and repeating the key message: “The West must remain silent and not give Putin any opportunity to blame the US or NATO for the insurrection.”
Tanks belonging to the “Wagner” group in the city center of Rostov (EPA)
An ally of President Vladimir Putin said today, as reported by Reuters, that the rebels from the private military group “Wagner” were able to advance very quickly towards Moscow because the pro-state forces focused on strengthening the defense of the capital. The head of the group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said his fighters had advanced 780km in one day and came within 200km of Moscow on Saturday, a “lesson” of what war in Ukraine should be like.
But Viktor Zolotov, a close Putin ally and head of the National Guard, had a different interpretation. “It’s very simple: we concentrated all our power in Moscow,” said Zolotov, who served as chief of the presidential guard between 2000 and 2013 and was sometimes seen wielding an automatic weapon to protect Putin on his dangerous trips.
Zolotov, 69, said he was in constant contact with Putin on Friday and Saturday. He added that the Guard will be equipped in the future with heavy weapons and tanks after its units were about to defend Moscow in the face of the heavily armed rebels. The National Guard, which has a strength of more than 340,000, was formed in 2016 to ensure order and security alongside the police and security services. Zolotov said his men were ready to fight to the death in defense of the state.
2023-06-27 07:28:51
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