Vladimir Putin Archives - The African Mirror

Jul

2023

Russia’s Putin snubs Prigozhin, Biden jokes about poison

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin offered Wagner mercenaries the opportunity to keep fighting at a meeting just days after their failed mutiny but suggested Yevgeny Prigozhin be moved aside in favour of a different commander, the Kommersant newspaper said. Putin initially said he would crush the June 23-24 mutiny, comparing it to the wartime turmoil that ushered in the revolutions of 1917, but hours later a deal was clinched to allow Prigozhin and some of his fighters to go to Belarus. Mystery surrounds the fate of that deal as well as the future of Wagner, one of the world's most battle-hardened mercenary…

Jul

2023

By GUY FAULCONBRIDGE

Russian general says top military brass betrayed soldiers fighting in Ukraine

WORLD

A Russian general said he had been dismissed as a commander after telling the military leadership about the dire situation at the front in Ukraine, where he said Russian soldiers had been stabbed in the back by the failings of the top military brass. After the June 24 mutiny by Wagner mercenaries, the biggest domestic challenge to the Russian state in decades, President Vladimir Putin has so far kept Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov in their jobs. Major General Ivan Popov, who commanded the 58th Combined Arms Army, said in a voice message…

Jul

2023

By ANDREW OSBORN and MARK TREVELYAN

Putin held post-mutiny talks with Wagner leader Prigozhin and his fighters – Kremlin

WORLD

PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin has held Kremlin talks with Wagner mercenary group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and his commanders to discuss the armed mutiny Wagner attempted to mount against the army's top brass, Putin's spokesman said. The meeting was first reported by French newspaper Liberation, which said Prigozhin had met Putin and the head of the National Guard, Viktor Zolotov, and SVR Foreign Intelligence boss Sergei Naryshkin. The meeting, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, was held on June 29, five days after the aborted mutiny, which is widely regarded to have posed the most serious challenge to Putin since he came…

Jul

2023

By GUY FAULCONBRIDGE

Mercenary chief Prigozhin back in Russia, Belarus’s Lukashenko says

WORLD

BELARUSIAN President Alexander Lukashenko said that the mutinous chief of Russia's Wagner group was still in Russia with thousands of fighters, but dismissed speculation that President Vladimir Putin would have Yevgeny Prigozhin killed. Lukashenko helped broker a deal to end last month's mutiny, the gravest challenge to Putin in his 23 years in power, under which Prigozhin was supposed to stand down his mercenaries and move to Belarus in exchange for Putin dropping charges. But in comments that raised questions about the deal, Lukashenko said Prigozhin and his fighters were still in Russia, and that it was possible they would…

Jul

2023

By The African Mirror

Putin reassures Asian allies of Russia’s stability after mutiny

WORLD

PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin reassured Asian leaders of Russia's stability and unity in his first appearance at an international forum since the country was rocked by a brief armed mutiny last month. "The Russian people are consolidated as never before," Putin told a virtual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a group that also includes China and India. "Russian political circles and the whole of society clearly demonstrated their unity and an elevated sense of responsibility for the fate of the Fatherland when they responded as a united front against an attempted armed mutiny." Putin's emphasis on Russia's unity at…

Jul

2023

By STEVE HOLLAND and NATHAN LAYNE

Exclusive: Trump says aborted mutiny ‘somewhat weakened’ Putin

WORLD

FORMER U.S. President Donald Trump, a longtime admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Putin has been "somewhat weakened" by an aborted mutiny and that now is the time for the United States to try to broker a negotiated peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine. "I want people to stop dying over this ridiculous war," Trump told Reuters in a telephone interview. Speaking expansively about foreign policy, the front-runner in opinion polls for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination also said China should be given a 48-hour deadline to get out of what sources familiar with the matter say is a Chinese…

Jun

2023

By The African Mirror

South Africa to host BRICS summit despite Putin arrest warrant

NEWS

CARIEN DU PLESSIS SOUTH Africa said it will host the BRICS bloc summit in August as planned, amid speculation that it may move to China so Russia's President Vladimir Putin can attend in a nation not obliged to arrest him on war crimes accusations. South Africa has a duty as a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to arrest Putin if he attends the talks between the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China, due to an arrest warrant over the deportation of children from Ukraine. Putin denies the charges. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa met with him on…

Jun

2023

By The African Mirror

Russian elites trembled as Wagner rebellion took hold

WORLD

GUY FAULCONBRIDGE, DARYA KORSUNSKAYA and GLEB STOLYAROV AS one of the most brutal mercenary forces marched on Moscow, some among Russia's elite trembled in fear that the world's biggest nuclear power was teetering on the brink of what President Vladimir Putin said could have been a civil war. With Putin facing the biggest public challenge of his 23 years as paramount leader, some private jets sped out of Moscow, according to flight tracking data and one source with knowledge of the matter. One fear was that Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner mercenary group, if he entered Moscow, would try to take over…

Jun

2023

By GUY FAULCONBRIDGE and LIDIA KELLY

Putin wanted to ‘wipe out’ Wagner chief Prigozhin during mutiny attempt, says Lukashenko

WORLD

BELARUSIAN President Alexander Lukashenko said he persuaded Russian President Vladimir Putin not to "wipe out" mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, in response to what the Kremlin cast as a mutiny that pushed Russia towards civil war. Putin initially vowed to crush the mutiny, comparing it to the wartime turmoil that ushered in the revolution of 1917 and then a civil war, but hours later a deal was clinched to allow Prigozhin and some of his fighters to go to Belarus. Prigozhin flew to Belarus from Russia on Tuesday. While describing his Saturday conversation with Putin, Lukashenko used the Russian criminal slang…

Jun

2023

By The African Mirror

Mercenary chief Prigozhin starts exile in Belarus, Putin praises Russian troops

WORLD

RUSSIAN mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin arrived in Belarus under a deal that ended a brief mutiny by his fighters, as President Vladimir Putin praised his armed forces for averting a civil war. A plane linked to Prigozhin and believed to be carrying him into exile was shown on a flight tracking service taking off from the southern Russian city of Rostov early on Tuesday and landing in Belarus. "I see Prigozhin is already flying in on this plane," state news agency BELTA quoted Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko as saying. "Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today." In Moscow, Putin sought to reassert…