Russian officials proclaim loyalty to Putin after Wagner’s mutiny
Russian officials have proclaimed loyalty to President Vladimir Putin, with almost all predicting victory following an armed mutiny by the Wagner group against Moscow.
Kremlin officials, regional governors and lawmakers declared their loyalty to Putin on Saturday, after Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion against the Russian leader, The New York Times reported.
No central figures have publicly taken Prigozhin’s side, with almost everyone official predicting that Putin would prevail.
Roman Starovoit, the governor of the Kursk region, said the war in Ukraine was the key task at hand. “The main enemy outside our borders is shelling peaceful settlements in our region,” he said.
Sergei Mironov, the head of the “A Just Russia” party in the Russian parliament, kept his distance from Wagner, saying, “We will not allow the enemy to have the slightest chance.”
“Our country is fighting for its future,” he said in a statement.
Russian authorities said they were charging Prigozhin with “organizing an armed rebellion” against Putin.
Meanwhile, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev has highlighted the need to rally around the president in order to prevent a national split.
“Rallying around our president and the supreme commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces is crucial for defeating the external and internal enemy, which seeks to tear our Homeland apart, and for saving our state,” he said in a statement posted on Telegram.
“National split and betrayal would lead to the greatest tragedy ever and a universal catastrophe," he stressed, adding, "We will not let it happen. The enemy will be crushed. Victory will be ours."
In an audio message posted on Telegram on Friday, Prigozhin also accused the Russian top brass of launching strikes against his men and said that "the evil which the Russian military leadership carries must be stopped.”
He also claimed that he had taken control of the southern city Rostov-on-Don as part of an attempt to oust the military leadership.
In an emergency televised address to the nation on Saturday, Putin said the "armed mutiny" was treason, pledging that anyone who had taken up arms against the Russian military would be punished.
"This is a stab in the back to our country, to our nation," Putin said. "What we have been faced with is exactly betrayal. Extravagant ambitions and personal interests led to treason."
The Wagner Group is a paramilitary organization that has been fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.
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