Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with the head of the private military group "Wagner" Yevgeny Prigogine and leaders in the group, to discuss the armed rebellion that they tried to carry out against senior army commanders

 

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Edited by| Hugh Gey

 

Politic section -  CJ journalist

Ukraine conflict news section      

 

Moscow – July,10,2023

 

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The news about the meeting was first reported in the French newspaper "Liberation", which said that Prigogine met with Putin, the head of the National Guard Viktor Zolotov and the head of Foreign Intelligence Sergei Naryshkin.

According to Peskov, the meeting took place on June 29, five days after the nip-in-the-bud rebellion that is widely believed to have posed the most serious challenge to Putin since he came to power in 1999.

Peskov told reporters that Putin invited 35 people to the meeting, including Prigogine and the commanders of the "Wagner" units, and that the meeting lasted three hours.

He added that the Russian president listened to the leaders ' explanations of what happened and offered them more options for action and combat.

The Ukrainian army recaptured 14 square kilometers in the east of the country last week from Russian troops as part of its counteroffensive, as announced by one of its spokesmen Andrey Kovalyov.

"More than 10 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory were liberated in the south of Ukraine last week," he told Ukrainian television, explaining that 4 square kilometers were also liberated "in the Bakhmut region" to the East. This amounts to 193 square kilometers of the total area that Ukraine has controlled since the start of its counteroffensive in early June.

Russian chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov appeared in a video posted on Monday ordering subordinates to destroy Ukrainian missile launch sites in his first public appearance since the failed rebellion on June 24.

Gerasimov, 67, appeared in a room at the military command headquarters, sitting on a white leather bench, presiding over a meeting of senior generals, including the head of military intelligence, and issuing his orders. Some generals participated in the meeting by video.

The reports to Gerasimov said Russian forces foiled a Ukrainian missile attack on Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and on the Rostov and Kaluga regions on Sunday, and discussed how Russia should respond.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the video showed Gerasimov as he chaired the meeting on Sunday. The ministry referred to Gerasimov as the chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and the commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, tasks that were assigned to him before the rebellion.

The video shows that Russian President Vladimir Putin kept the two most important military officials, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Gerasimov, in their posts despite Yevgeny Prigogine, the head of the private military group "Wagner", demanding their dismissal during the mutiny.

Prigogine's mutiny on June 24 was aimed at settling scores with Shoigu and Gerasimov, whom he accused of treason and incompetence and that they pushed Putin into a losing war that exposed what he said was corruption and folly in the Russian army.

 

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