After the speeches to the people, Vladimir Putin decided to personally express his gratitude to the soldiers who stopped the attempted revolt of Wagner, gathering them in the Cathedral square in the Kremlin. “You have protected the constitutional order, life, security and freedom of our citizens, you have kept our homeland safe from upheavals, you have effectively stopped the civil war,” he said in front of the heads of the Defense Ministry, the Federal Guard Service, the Federal Security Service and the Ministry of the Interior. Putin also asked for a minute of silence to remember the fallen in the events of February 24: “The true defenders in difficult times have hindered the unrest, the result of which would have been chaos”, he praised them, underlining how civilian casualties have been avoided . If the revolt of the Wagner group had been successful “we don’t know what would have become of the country”, he continued, “all the conquests gained during the fighting would have been lost but you didn’t allow it”. Finally, Putin did not forget to underline how much the state has invested in the Wagner militia to which, from May 2022 to May 2023, he allegedly paid over 86 billion rubles. “I hope no one has stolen anything,” he specified, referring to the leaders of the armed militia.
Meanwhile, Moscow has moved on to practice, implementing the first measures to contain and dismember the Wagner armed militia. Starting with the armaments that the Kremlin had supplied to the battalion so far and which will now be transferred to the regular Russian army. Perhaps the head of the Russian National Guard was referring to this, announcing that his soldiers will soon receive tanks and heavy weapons. Although the Federal Security Service of Russia, the FSB, then closed the investigation against Prigozhin with the decision not to prosecute him, there is no longer a place for him at home. Putin’s former cook has flown to Belarus, where it has been decided that he will spend his “exile”. His private jet touched down on Minsk territory on Tuesday morning and his presence was later confirmed by President Lukashenko, despite the fact that the Kremlin had repeatedly refused to give information on the exact location of the head of Wagner.
In Belarus, where most of the nuclear weapons announced by Moscow have already arrived, those battalion militiamen who decide not to enlist with the regular Russian army could also arrive. No camps will be built for them, Lukashenko assured, but they will be able to “set up their tents in an abandoned military facility” that Minsk will make available to them. Their combat experience could be useful to Belarus, is the opinion of Lukashenko who is enjoying his moment of glory as a faithful ally of Moscow and negotiator between Putin and Prigozhin. The Belarusian leader recalled that he put his army on high alert during the armed uprising in case Russia needed it. He also retraced the stages of the negotiations with the head of Wagner, to convince him to desist from his intention to march on Moscow: “Halfway you will simply be squashed like an insect”, would have been his words to Prigozhin who then, again according to the reconstruction of Lukashenko, he would also have renounced his first requests, namely the resignation of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and those of Moscow’s army chief Valery Gerasimov.
