MOSCOW: Russia must remain united behind President Vladimir Putin, as it has faced “a challenge to its stability”, its prime minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Monday after Wagner mercenaries briefly occupied a strategic command centre for its Ukraine war and marched on Moscow.
The armed mutiny by the mighty Wagner Group over the weekend and its abrupt ending with no apparent penalties for the perpetrators or their boss were followed on Monday by official measures to return the country to normal.
During a televised government meeting, Russian Prime Minister Mishustin said Russia had faced a challenge to its stability. The nation needed to act together and maintain the unity of all forces, rallying around the president Putin, Reuters reported.
Russia’s national Anti-Terrorism Committee (ATC) said the situation was stable, and Sergei Sobyanin, the Moscow Mayor, said he was cancelling a counter-terrorism regime imposed in the city.
Russia’s allies and foes’ reaction
Russia’s ally China said it supported Moscow in maintaining national stability, while Ukraine and its several Western allies said the turmoil exposed cracks in Russia.
Josep Borrell, European Union foreign policy chief, told journalists that the political system is showing fragilities, and the military power of Russia is cracking.
Annalena Baerbock, German Foreign Minister, said Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to counter a threat to Russia from there and the West, was devastating Russia and the West would continue to back Ukraine.
Wagner Group’s mercenaries fighting in Ukraine who crossed into Russia on Saturday halted their advance on the capital city of Moscow, withdrew from the southern city Rostov and moved back to their bases in the evening under an amnesty deal granting them safety.
Their commander, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who had demanded that the defence minister and the top army general be handed over to him, would move to neighbouring Belarus under the agreement mediated by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
