Secret Meeting in the Kremlin Between Putin and the Wagners

As early as June 29, just five days after the attempted mutiny that shook Russia and the whole world, President Vladimir Putin met in the Kremlin with Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the private military company Wagner, and 34 commanders of this mini-army.

But only today, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov released some very scarce details about the sensational meeting, which took place behind closed doors and lasted for “more than three hours.”

“Indeed, the president was present at the meeting. He sent out an invitation to 35 people. All the military leaders were present. Including Prigozhin,” Peskov told reporters today.

As the presidential press secretary clarified, Putin gave “an assessment of the company’s actions at the front during the special military operation” (in Ukraine – ed.) and also “gave the participants their own vision of the events of June 24.” Last month, Prigozhin and his forces briefly took control of the city of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia and threatened to march on Moscow in what international observers saw as “the biggest challenge to Putin’s power since he was appointed President of the Russian Federation in 1999.”

Again, according to Peskov, “Prigozhin and his men assured Putin of their full support and unconditional loyalty, while the Kremlin leader asked the troops to return to fighting for Russia.”

The dramatic conflict provoked by sharp disagreements between the Wagner group and the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense was resolved by an agreement reached through the mediation of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. The Wagner leader, with his 35,000 super-trained soldiers and veterans of armed conflicts in Africa, Syria, and Ukraine, was supposed to move to Belarus, but Lukashenko himself said last week that Prigozhin had returned to Russia.