kyiv speculates that the Wagner Group rebellion was instigated by senior Russian military officials

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June 27 () –

The secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksii Danilov, has speculated on Tuesday that the recent rebellion of the Wagner Group and its leader, Yevgeni Prigozhin, may have been instigated by senior Russian military officials.

“Prigozhin is not an independent figure, behind him are people in uniform, and this is taken for granted, it was not his own desire to go somewhere (…) he is clearly under control,” Danilov said.

In this sense, the senior Ukrainian official pointed out that, although Prigozhin previously obeyed the orders of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, today the president “has lost that control”, which now falls to a group “whose purpose is to replace Russia’s leadership.”

Likewise, Danilov has ventured that new episodes like the one experienced over the weekend will occur in the future, and has criticized the fact that the Kremlin announced a statement by Putin the day before that, supposedly, was going to change “the future of Russia”, but which ultimately was not the case.

Danilov has ruled out the possibility that the mercenaries’ revolt was “a show”, and has assured that it was “a real military operation” that has revealed that President Putin “is not the head of the country”.

“Everyone fled from Moscow like rats, urgently fled as soon as some incomprehensible events began, which they could not influence, and this will have huge consequences for Russia”, which has now revealed itself as a country “not as controlled” as it might seem , the Ukrainian official has asserted.

The rebellion of the Wagner Group, led by Prigozhin, began late on Friday with the seizure of the Russian city of Rostov, headquarters of the southern command of the Army, with the intention of heading towards Moscow to ask the Ministry of Defense for explanations for allegedly killing his men in a bombing raid.

In full conflict with the Kremlin and a few hundred kilometers from Moscow, the convoy turned around on Saturday afternoon thanks to the mediation of the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, in an agreement to stop the revolt, amnesty the mercenaries and send the exile to Belarus to Prigozhin.