Wagner Group ‘simply doesn’t exist’ as a legal entity, Vladimir Putin says – National | 24CA News
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the Wagner personal navy firm “simply doesn’t exist” as a authorized entity, in feedback including to the collection of usually weird twists which have adopted the group’s abortive revolt final month – probably the most critical risk to Putin’s 23-year rule amid the struggle in Ukraine.
“There is no law on private military organizations. It simply doesn’t exist,” Putin advised a Russian newspaper late Thursday, referring to the Wagner group.
Putin recounted to Kommersant his personal model of a Kremlin occasion attended by 35 Wagner commanders, together with the group’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, on June 29. That assembly got here simply 5 days after Prigozhin and his troops staged a shocking however short-lived riot towards Moscow authorities.
The assembly was revealed earlier this week by a Kremlin official.
Putin stated that on the talks, Wagner rejected a proposal to maintain its troops in Ukraine, the place they’ve performed key battlefield roles, below the management of their direct commander.
“All of them could have gathered in one place and continued to serve,” Putin advised the newspaper, “And nothing would have changed for them. They would have been led by the same person who had been their real commander all along.”
Putin has beforehand stated that Wagner troops had to decide on whether or not to signal contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry, transfer to neighboring Belarus or retire from service.
According to Putin, though “many nodded” when he made his proposal, Prigozhin rejected the concept, responding that “the boys won’t agree with such a decision.”
This, Putin stated, was certainly one of “several employment options” put ahead on the assembly.
During the revolt that lasted lower than 24 hours, Prigozhin’s mercenaries shortly swept by way of the southern Russian metropolis of Rostov-on-Don and captured the navy headquarters there with out firing a shot, earlier than driving to inside about 200 kilometres of Moscow.
Prigozhin described the transfer as a “march of justice” to oust the navy leaders, who demanded that Wagner signal contracts with the Defence Ministry by July 1.
The destiny of Prigozhin and the phrases of a deal that ended the armed riot by providing amnesty for him and his mercenaries, together with permission, to maneuver to Belarus stay cloudy.
Wagner mercenaries are finishing the handover of their weapons to the Russian navy, the Defence Ministry stated Wednesday.
Their disarming of Wagner displays efforts by Russian authorities to defuse the risk they posed and likewise seems to herald an finish to the mercenary group’s operations on the battlefield in Ukraine, the place Kyiv’s forces are engaged in a counteroffensive.
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