Less than 12 hours after telling the nation that the organizers of the armed rebellion would face justice, Vladimir Putin appears to have had a change of heart again.
The volatile boss appears ready to let Yevgeny Prigozhin get away with the insurrection on Russian soil – which has killed as many as 39 service members – after the FSB announces that all charges against Wagner are being dropped.
It is curious that the press service of the FSB He said On Tuesday, the case was dropped because investigators determined that the participants in the armed uprising had “stopped actions directly aimed at committing a crime.”
(In other words, an armed rebellion is totally fine as long as the rebels stop halfway. But criticizing the war against Ukraine on social media can land you in jail for years.)
Prigozhin has not been specifically named but it is reported that the whole case is now closed.
In his second address to the nation in three days, Putin vowed Monday night to punish the leaders of the plot. The organizers of this rebellion … [will] to justice.”
The Russian Defense Ministry was also quoted as telling the Tass news agency that Wagner is preparing to hand over its heavy military equipment to units of the regular armed forces. It was not immediately clear if this was part of a behind-the-scenes deal to have the charges dropped.
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