Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said that he did not doubt the support of Russian citizens during the uprising by the mercenary group Wagner.
“I did not doubt the reaction in Dagestan and in all of the country,” he said as he met Sergei Melikov, the head of the Caucasus region, according to an extract of the meeting aired on Russian television.
Putin released this statement in his response to Melikov who had remarked that “there was not a single person in Dagestan who did not support decisions made by the leaders of the Russian Federation” over the aborted rebellion.
Putin wished to ‘wipe out’ Wagner chief after mutiny
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed that he had requested Russian President Vladimir Putin not to “wipe out” mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin amid the armed mutiny of Wagner group that pushed Russia to the brink of civil war.
Initially, Putin had promised to crush the mutiny which it compared to the wartime turmoil that had led to the revolution of 1917 followed by civil war, however, hours later the Wagner chief finalised a deal which allowed him along with some of his fighters to go to Belarus.
On Tuesday, Wagner chief flew to Belarus from Russia. Lukashenko, while talking about the conversation he had with Putin on Saturday, made use of the Russian criminal slang phrase used for killing someone which is similar to the English phrase to “wipe out”.
“I also understood: a brutal decision had been made (and it was the undertone of Putin’s address) to wipe out the mutineers,” said Lukashenko in a meeting of his army officials as well as journalists on Tuesday, as reported by the Belarusian state media.
“I suggested to Putin not to rush. ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘Let’s talk with Prigozhin, with his commanders.’ To which he told me: ‘Listen, Sasha, it’s useless. He doesn’t even pick up the phone, he doesn’t want to talk to anyone’,” he stated.
The same Russian verb was used by Putin in 1999 about Chechen militants, as he vowed to “wipe out them out in the shithouse”. The remarks made by Putin became a widely quoted emblem of the Russian leader’s severe persona.
(With inputs from agencies)
