State Department says Prigozhin is under indictment in the US, wants Prigozhin declared persona non grata…reports Asian Lite News
The United States on Tuesday said that Washington will soon announce measures against the Wagner group over its past activities in Africa.
During a regular press briefing on Tuesday, the US State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller said, “I would say in terms of this – the disposition of Yevgeniy Prigozhin, he’s under indictment in the United States. We would like to see him here standing trial for the crimes that he is alleged to have committed.”
Responding to a media query on whether Prigozhin should be declared persona non grata, and Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko welcoming the Wagner chief to his land, Miller said, “I will just repeat what I said, which is that the decision by Lukashenko to welcome him to Belarus does show that he continues to take steps not in the interest of his own people but in the interest of the Kremlin.”
“I will say, I don’t have any United States assessment of the situation. As I said yesterday, and as Secretary Blinken said, on Sunday, everywhere where Wagner goes, death and destruction follow in their wake. So, the decision by Prez Lukashenko to welcome Prigozhin to Belarus, I think is another example of him choosing the interest of Vladimir Putin and choosing the interest of the Kremlin over the Belarusian people,” said Miller.
He added that the US would continue to support Ukraine and its military to repel the Russian troops.
“In terms of what’s next, on this, to be continued US support for Ukraine and continued US support for the Ukrainian military’s work to repel Russian troops, whether they be Ministry of Defense troops, or whether they be Wagner forces, or whether they be whatever the next iteration, if any, of Wagner forces, look like to repel those forces from Ukraine’s borders.”
“And just as you will see actions from us in the very near future to hold Wagner accountable, you will see continued actions from us in the very near future to continue to supply the Ukrainian military with the equipment, the military equipment that it needs, to press their case on the battlefield,” he said during the State Department briefing on Tuesday.
Wagner Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has reached Belarus, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced on Tuesday, reported CNN.
Russia drops “armed mutiny” charges against Prigozhin
Russia dropped the “armed mutiny” criminal charges against Wagner mercenary group’s founder Yevgeny Prigozhin and its members, a domestic intelligence agency said on Tuesday, The New York Times reported.
In a statement, the Federal Security Service said, “It was established that its (Wagner) participants stopped their actions directly aimed at committing a crime on June 24,” adding, “Taking into account these and other circumstances of value to the investigation, the investigative agency resolved on June 27 to terminate the criminal case.” An amnesty for the Wagner fighters who participated in the mutiny was part of a deal brokered on Saturday by Belarus President Aleksander Lukashenko between Prigozhin and Russian President Vladimir Putin that brought an end to the war and also avoided the possible bloodshed in the country.
The Wagner forces also shot down several Russian aircraft, leading to the deaths of an undisclosed number of airmen whom Putin has praised as “fallen hero pilots.”
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that the mercenary group’s fighters were preparing to hand over military equipment to the army, reported The New York Times.
The announcements appeared to be an effort to address one of the questions that have lingered since the weekend mutiny: the fate of Wagner’s heavily armed forces.
Putin has said that all private armies fighting on behalf of Russia in Ukraine would have to come under the supervision of the Russian Defense Ministry by July 1, including members of Wagner.
But there was no immediate response from the Wagner group or from Prigozhin, who has not been seen publicly since Saturday.
Prigozhin, in an audio message published on Monday by his news service, said that the march was a demonstration of protest and not intended to overthrow power.
Explaining his decision to turn around his march on Moscow, Prigozhin said he wanted to avoid Russian bloodshed.
“We started our march because of an injustice. We went to demonstrate our protest and not to overthrow power in the country,” Prigozhin said in an audio message, Al Jazeera reported.
In his new audio message, Prigozhin said that about 30 of his fighters died in the Russian army’s attack on the mercenary group on Friday. He said the attack came days before Wagner was scheduled to leave its positions on June 30 and hand over equipment to the Southern Military District in Rostov.
“Overnight, we have walked 780 kilometers (about 484 miles). Two hundred-something kilometers (about 125 miles) were left to Moscow,” Prigozhin claimed in the latest audio message, as per CNN.
He said, “Not a single soldier on the ground was killed.” (ANI)
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