Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with mercenary Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin days after his failed mutiny against the Russian military, Putin’s spokesperson told several news organizations Monday, providing new details about the fallout from one of the biggest challenges to Putin’s rule in decades.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is pictured in this July 4 photo. Putin reportedly met with Yevgeny ... [+]
Putin and Prigozhin met on June 29, five days after Prigozhin and his Wagner group attempted a mutiny against Putin’s top brass, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the New York Times and other outlets Monday.
Peskov said Prigozhin and other Wagner unit field commanders were among 35 people invited to a three-hour meeting that day.
Peskov also reportedly said the Wagner commanders reaffirmed their loyalty to Putin and would continue fighting on his behalf in Ukraine.
This alleged meeting came three days after Putin publicly called Prigozhin’s actions “treason” and a “stab in the back.”
On June 24, Prigozhin and his Wagner fighters launched a short-lived apparent attempt to overthrow Putin’s top military leaders, seizing control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and shooting down several Russian military helicopters. That mutiny ended in about 24 hours with a cease-fire brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that purportedly involved Prigozhin agreeing to an exile in Belarus.