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Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed Monday that those responsible for the armed revolt that plunged his regime into crisis would “be brought to justice.”
Addressing the nation for the first time since the short-lived rebellion ended over the weekend, Putin appeared defiant but offered little clarity about his planned response.
“Any blackmail is doomed to failure,” he said, claiming his forces could have crushed a mutiny that posed the biggest challenge to his rule in more than 20 years had the mercenary fighters not turned back from Moscow.
Putin also thanked the Russian people for their support and claimed the crisis had only served to unite the country.
Earlier Monday, Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin issued a defiant defense of his own actions and denied trying to topple Putin.
The Kremlin had said over the weekend that the rebel leader would have all charges against him dropped and be allowed to move to Belarus — Putin’s statement suggested this may not be the case, but he didn’t refer to Prigozhin directly by name.
He did say he would keep his promise to Wagner fighters that they could join the Russian military or move safely to Belarus.
It followed a day in which the Russian president and other top officials had scrambled to restore a sense of authority after the unprecedented challenge to their power.
In his speech, Putin again labeled the organizers of the rebellion traitors. “This was a colossal threat,” the Russian leader said.
Putin said Kyiv and its backers sought the internal conflict that broke out on Russian soil, but provided no evidence to support these claims. President Joe Biden insisted earlier that the U.S. and Western allies had “made clear that we were not involved.”
Putin did, however, take time to praise the fighters who seized a Russian city and marched toward Moscow before stopping short.
“The majority of the Wagner company are also patriots of Russia. They have shown their courage in defending Donbas and yet were encouraged to fight against their compatriots,” he said, referring to the region in eastern Ukraine where Wagner has led much of the fighting.
“By turning back they avoided further bloodshed,” he added. “We have to think about the people who actually decided to do this.”
The Russian president also offered thanks and praise for Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who purportedly brokered the deal to end the crisis and allowed Prigozhin to depart Russia for Belarus.
Sen. Mark Warner, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on MSNBC that the mercenary leader was staying in a hotel in Minsk.
Prigozhin claimed that he acted not to topple Putin’s regime but to protect Wagner from being destroyed by the Russian defense ministry. “We started our march because of an injustice,” he said in the nearly 12-minute audio recording shared Monday on his press office’s channel on Telegram. He gave no indication of his whereabouts or plans.The weekend’s events were a stunning escalation in a long-running feud between Prigozhin and the military’s top brass, whom he has repeatedly accused of starving Wagner of weapons and supplies.
The future of Prigozhin, his rebels and the defense chiefs he clashed with is now unclear, and Putin’s speech on Monday will only further add to the confusion.
Yuliya Talmazan contributed.
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