PRIGOZHIN BRANDED ‘A TRAITOR’ BY RUSSIA’S STATE TV CHANNEL AS WAGNER BOSS “LEFT FOR MOSCOW”

Thu 06 July 2023:

Disclaimer: A number of claims and counterclaims are being made on the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the ground and online. While Independent Press takes utmost care to accurately report this developing news story, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos.

The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, who last month brokered a deal to end Wagner’s armed mutiny, has said the mercenary head Yevgeny Prigozhin had returned to Russia.

“As for Prigozhin, he’s in St Petersburg. He is not on the territory of Belarus,” Lukashenko said. “Where is Prigozhin this morning? Maybe he left for Moscow.”

Lukashenko said Wagner troops were stationed at their camps in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, adding that his offer to host them in Belarus remained.

Lukashenko also said the issue of relocating forces from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has not yet been resolved, the According to the TASS news agency reported.

Under a deal brokered by Lukashenko, Prigozhin abandoned what he called a “march for justice” by thousands of his men on Moscow, in exchange for safe passage to exile in Belarus.

There were already questions about whether Prigozhin was sticking to the terms of the deal.

The warlord has not been photographed in Belarus, and Prigozhin’s jet has flown several times back and forth from Belarus to Moscow and St Petersburg.

‘A traitor’

Russian state TV has launched a fierce attack on Yevgeny Prigozhin, the exiled boss of the Wagner mercenary force, saying that an investigation into the private army’s short-lived mutiny against the Moscow military leadership was still under way.

In a programme called 60 Minutes broadcast on Wednesday on Russia’s state Russia-1 TV channel, the Wagner boss was branded a “traitor” and viewers were told that the criminal case against Prigozhin was in full swing.

The host of the 60 Minutes programme, Russian lawmaker Yevgeny Popov, said Prigozhin was “a traitor” and video footage shot during police raids of Prigozhin’s office and residence in Saint Petersburg was shown as proof of the Wagner chief’s criminality.

The footage showed boxes full of high-denomination roubles in Prigozhin’s office and bundles of dollars in his luxurious residence, along with what was called his personal helicopter, an arms cache, a collection of wigs, a fully equipped medical treatment room, and a collection of souvenir sledge hammers, the tool Wagner fighters allegedly used to bludgeon traitors to death in videos that have surfaced online.

The boxes of money raided from the Gazel mini-van at the Trezzini Hotel near Prigozhin’s office. Picture: Telegram / Fontanka

The footage was presented by a specially invited guest – journalist Eduard Petrov.

“Nobody planned to close this case. The investigation is ongoing,” Petrov told the viewers. He also said that Russian investigators had concluded that a video used by Prigozhin as a pretext to start his mutiny against Russian military chiefs – which claimed to show a Russian missile attack on a Wagner camp – was a fake.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

______________________________________________________________

FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:

TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent