The Russian president opens the double track for mercenaries: “Continue serving Russia by signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense or return to your family and friends”
The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, offered on Monday to the mercenaries of the Wagner Group who revolted over the weekend against the military leadership to join the regular army of the country or go to Belarus with their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
“Today you have the opportunity to continue to serve Russia by sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense (…), return to his family and friends. Or those who want can go to Belarus,” the president said in a televised address to the nation.
“We knew and we know that the vast majority of the combatants and commanders of the Wagner Group are Russian patriots, loyal to the people and the state. They have shown it with their courage on the battlefield” in Ukraine, Putin stressed in a televised speech. “They have tried to use them from the dark and pit them against their comrades in arms, with whom they have fought for the country and its future,” has added.
“Those who organized the rebellion with their betrayal of the country, its people, betrayed those who were dragged into crime. They lied to them, they pushed them to death“, he lamented.
Putin has also highlighted that “from the very beginning of everything” he himself gave “direct instructions” to “avoid great bloodshed.” “This took time and those who made a mistake had the option to think twice, to understand that their actions were being rejected by society and that they would have tragic, destructive consequences for Russia,” he explained.
In any case, Putin has stressed that “the rebellion would have been crushed“. “The organizers of the rebellion knew this despite their smugness. They understood it all, that they were committing criminal acts, that they were dividing and weakening the country when it is facing a colossal external threat, unprecedented pressure from abroad, when at the front they say ‘not one step back!’ while our comrades are dying,” he argued.
The Russian president thus conveyed his gratitude “to the soldiers and commanders of the Wagner Group who made the only correct decision.” “They did not launch into a fratricidal bloodshed. They stopped in the last line“, has underlined.
The Russian leader has also warned that the “fratricide“It was what Ukraine and its Western allies wanted. “Kievan neo-Nazis and their Western bosses and all kinds of national traitors (…) rubbed their hands together,” he said.
“They wanted Russian soldiers to kill each other, soldiers and civilians to die so that in the end Russia would lose and our society would be divided, drowned in a bloody civil conflict”he has argued. “They dreamed of taking revenge for their failures at the front and in their supposed counteroffensive, but they have erred in their calculations,” she stressed.
Putin has also mentioned “the courage and sacrifice of fallen pilot heroes who saved Russia from devastating consequences”, referring to the aircraft pilots shot down by Prigozhin’s forces.
On the other hand, Putin thanked the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko “for his efforts and contribution to a peaceful resolution of the situation”.
Finally, Putin highlighted the “firm, unequivocal position in support of the constitutional order of public and religious organizations, the main political parties and the entire Russian society.” “Everyone was united and agreed on the most important thing: the responsibility for the fate of the homeland“, has riveted.
Thus, he thanked the “resistance, solidarity and patriotism” of the population. “This civic solidarity has shown that any blackmail, any attempt at destabilization, is doomed to failure,” he stressed.