President Vladimir Putin ordered Wagner’s mercenary fighters to sign a loyalty oath to the Russian state after Yevgeny Prighozhin, the group’s volatile leader, was killed in a plane crash.
Putin signed the order making the change effective immediately on Friday after the Kremlin dismissed suggestions that Prighozin had been killed on his orders, calling the murder charge an “absolute lie.”
Russia’s aviation authority has said Prigozhin was aboard a private plane that crashed northwest of Moscow on Wednesday night with no survivors exactly two months after he led a failed riot and march on Moscow.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a Putin ally who welcomed the exiled mercenary group after the attempted coup, said Prighozin dismissed warnings about his safety before the deadly plane crash.
“I told him: ‘Yevgeny, do you understand that you will condemn your people and die yourself?’” Lukashenko told Prigozhin.
Reportedly, Prighozin replied, “To hell with this, I’ll die.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered all troops under Yevgeny Prigozhin (left) Wagner to sign allegiance to Russia following his death.
Lukashenko added that he later told Prigozhin and another Wagner boss, Dmitry Utkin, who was also on the downed plane, to “be careful” when they traveled to visit him, although the state news agency, BELTA, did not specify when it took place. that conversation. occurred.
The Kremlin refused to definitively confirm his death, citing the need to wait for test results.
Following the accident, in which eight other people are believed to have died along with Prighozin and Utkin, a group of pro-Kiev Russian fighters called on the Wagner Group to switch sides and join their ranks to avenge the deaths of their leaders.
Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, is presumed to have died in a plane crash on August 23, 2023.AP
A makeshift monument to Prigozhin seen in Moscow, Russia, August 24, 2023. REUTERS
“Now they are faced with a serious decision: they can either stand at a Russian Defense Ministry post and serve as watchdogs for their commanders’ enforcers, or take revenge,” Denis Kapustin, commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps, said in a video released. online Thursday night. .
“To take revenge you have to side with Ukraine,” the commander said.
Kapustin, a far-right Russian citizen, founded the group a year ago and has since claimed credit for several military attacks on Russian regions bordering Ukraine.
“Let’s end the bloody meat grinder of the special military operation,” Kapustin said in his speech to the Wagner fighters, using the official Russian name for the invasion of Ukraine.
“After that, we will march towards Moscow and this time we will not stop 200 kilometers before the Moscow Ring Road, but will go all the way,” he said, alluding to the end of Progohzin’s failed mutiny.
A man places flowers at an informal memorial at a cafe owned by Prigozhin in St. Petersburg, Russia, on August 25, 2023.AP
A member of the Wagner group honors Prigozhin’s memory at a spontaneous memorial in St. Petersburg on August 23, 2023. Artem Priakhin/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
Others also made ominous comments after Prighozin’s death, including the Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel Gray Zone, which posted obituaries and tributes to the Wagner founder and Utkin.
“Russia will be different in the fall: events are coming that will change the face of the country,” a message posted on the channel warned on Friday. “Most, again, will not be ready for this.”
Meanwhile, some believe that Prighozin’s upcoming funeral may act as a flash point for the Wagner group.
Nigel Gould-Davies, a former British ambassador to Belarus and now a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), said the funeral would be significant.
“Prigozhin’s supporters can use this as an opportunity to praise him and his criticism of the Kremlin’s conduct of the war, and could strengthen the hostility of a core of Wagner loyalists towards the Kremlin,” he said.
Russian investigators have opened an investigation into what happened, but have not yet said what they suspect caused the plane to suddenly fall from the sky.
The identities of the 10 bodies recovered from the rubble have also not been officially identified.
Asked if the Kremlin had received confirmation of Prigozhin’s death, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday: “If you listen carefully to the statement of the Russian president, he said that all necessary tests will now be carried out, including genetic testing. The official results will be published as soon as they are ready to be published.
Peskov, who said Putin had not met Prigozhin recently, also said it was unclear how long the testing and investigative work would take.
Members of the Wagner Group military company wave a Wagner and Russian flag above a damaged building in Bakhmut, Ukraine, May 20, 2023.AP
Therefore, it was impossible to start talking about whether Putin would attend Prigozhin’s funeral, Peskov said.
“There are no dates for the funeral yet, it is impossible to talk about it at all. All I can say is that the president has a pretty busy schedule right now.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn