‘Any blackmail is doomed to failure,’ defiant Putin warns after tried riot

Vladimir Putin has warned “any blackmail is doomed to failure” – days after an tried riot led by Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The Russian president – talking from the Kremlin on Monday night time – made the feedback as he vowed that these concerned within the weekend’s “criminal activity” can be dropped at justice.

He mentioned the riot had been “aimed at weakening the country” and described it as “a colossal threat”.

But Putin additionally thanked the Russian public for its “support, patriotism and solidarity”, in addition to Belarus’s president Alexander Lukashenko for serving to to convey the disaster to a peaceable decision.

“Virtually the entirety of Russian society, all of them, have been united in the face of the responsibility to defend the homeland,” Putin claimed.

The Russian chief added that almost all Wagner mercenaries have been “patriots” who had been “used” by organisers of the riot.

He went on to say that “neo-Nazis in Kyiv and the West” had wished Russian troopers to kill one another.

But the president insisted that the rebellion had been “doomed to fail” and that “its organisers, even though they lost their sense of right and wrong, couldn’t have failed to realise that”.

He additionally claimed Ukraine was concerned within the weekend’s occasions and referred to as the revolt “revenge for their failed counteroffensive”.

Earlier on Monday, Prigozhin revealed he ordered his fighters to halt their advance on Moscow as a result of he “did not want to shed Russian blood”.

Reaction to Putin’s statement – live updates

Now reportedly in Belarus, the mercenary chief additionally insisted that many Russian civilians have been very supportive of Wagner’s “march for justice” – and a few have been disillusioned when it stopped.

A high White House official has denied that the US had any involvement in Saturday’s riot – and mentioned it had “good, direct communication with the Russians over the weekend”.

US President Joe Biden mentioned earlier that it was essential leaders gave Putin “no excuse” to blame the mutiny on the West or NATO.

“We made it clear we were not involved,” the president mentioned. “We had nothing to do with it.

“This was a part of a wrestle throughout the Russian system.”