Putin: An armed coup would have been suppressed, thanks to the Wagner fighters who stopped at the last moment

The armed coup that was attempted during the weekend would certainly have been suppressed, announced Russian President Vladimir Putin in a televised address to the public.

"An armed coup would have been suppressed in any case. The organizers of the coup, regardless of the loss of adequacy, could not fail to understand that," Putin said, reports Sputnik.

He thanked for perseverance, solidarity and patriotism.

"I thank the Wagner fighters who stopped at the last moment and did not start bloodshed. The decisions that were made under my direct orders were made to avoid bloodshed. The vast majority of the fighters of the Wagner group are patriots who took advantage. The organizers of the rebellion, who betrayed the country, they betrayed those who were with them. The rebels wanted the soldiers to kill each other, they wanted that outcome in Kiev as well," Putin pointed out.

He also said that the public, parties, religious organizations, the whole society took a firm stand in support of the constitutional order.

The Russian president also said that the situation showed that all blackmail and riots are doomed to failure.

According to Reuters, Putin also said he would honor his promise to allow Wagner's fighters to move to Belarus if they wanted, either to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense or simply return to their families.

He did not mention the head of the mercenary, paramilitary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led the rebellion.

Putin said that those who staged the "rebellion" wanted Russia to lose and Russian society to drown in blood, but that they "calculated badly."

He also thanked all the security services that "remained loyal to their vow", as well as the pilots who died in the conflict with Wagner's mercenaries.

Putin added that steps had been taken to avoid major bloodshed, "but it took time."

According to the Russian state news agency Tass, Putin addressed the nation from the Kremlin in Moscow.

His last such rebuff was on Saturday morning as Yevgeny Prigozhin and Wagner's forces moved toward Moscow, after capturing Rostov-on-Don.

The speech was broadcast on state television, and according to the BBC, Putin thanked the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, for his efforts to resolve the situation with Wagner peacefully, but he assessed that the unity of society played a decisive role. .

"Civil solidarity has shown that any blackmail and attempts to organize an internal rebellion will end in defeat," Putin said, as reported by CNN (CNN).

Prigozhin, a longtime close ally of Putin, launched a mutiny on the evening of June 23, claiming that the Russian military had killed several of his fighters in an airstrike, which the Defense Ministry in Moscow denied.

Wagner fighters have played a significant role in the Russian war against Ukraine so far.

A day later, Prigozhin announced that he was ending the rebellion and that he would return to the front in Ukraine with the fighters. However, the Kremlin soon announced that Prigozhin, based on an agreement reached with the mediation of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, should go to Belarus and that the criminal charges against the rebels would be dropped.

Prigozhin released an audio message today, stressing that the goal of his rebellion was to save the Wagner unit, not to overthrow the Russian authorities.