“The maintenance of the Wagner group was entirely provided by the state”, assures the Russian president.
It was an open secret. During a meeting with military officials broadcast on Russian television on Monday, Vladimir Putin spoke for the first time about the ties between the Russian state and the Wagner group.
The Russian president dwelt on the financing of the group led by Evgueni Prigojine, author of an abortive rebellion this weekend. “The maintenance of the Wagner group was entirely provided by the state,” he said, before delivering a series of figures.
“From May 2022 to May 2023, to maintain it, the state paid Wagner 86 billion rubles” (nearly one billion euros), said Vladimir Putin.
A taboo that jumps
According to him, “the owner of the Concord company”, a company owned by Evgueni Prigojine, “earned 80 billion rubles (about 850,000 euros, editor’s note) by supplying food to the army”. Vladimir Putin also promised an investigation into how these sums were spent.
Going into the details of Wagner’s financing, Vladimir Putin seems to want to emphasize the ingratitude of his former protege Evgueni Prigojine, whose name he still hasn’t mentioned since his aborted rebellion.
In doing so, the head of the Kremlin broke a taboo: that of the links between Wagner and the Russian state. For a long time, Moscow denied the very existence of the group, repeating that private military companies were banned in Russia.
As the influence of the paramilitaries grew in Africa, the Kremlin eventually recognized Wagner’s activity, while denying until Tuesday that it had a direct link with him.
Source: BFM TV
