By Andrew Osborn
(Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Tuesday it did not agree with what it called the opinion of “pseudo specialists” that an aborted armed mutiny by Wagner mercenaries at the weekend had shaken President Vladimir Putin’s position.
It has portrayed the Russian leader, in power as either president or prime minister since 1999, as having acted judiciously to avoid what it has called “the worst case scenario” by giving time for talks to yield a deal that ended the mutiny without more bloodshed.
Some Russian helicopter pilots were killed on Saturday after being ordered to engage a mercenary convoy headed to Moscow which shot them down. But a further escalation and a wider conflict was avoided.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the mutiny had shown how consolidated Russian society was around Putin when the chips were down.
“The level of public consolidation…around the president is very high. These events demonstrated just how consolidated the society is around the president”.
Asked if the Russian leader’s position had been “shaken” by the dramatic events, Peskov said:
“We do not agree. There is now a lot of ultra-emotional hysteria among specialists, pseudo-specialists, political scientists and pseudo-politicians. It is also rippling through some hysterical new media, and on the Internet and so on. It has nothing to do with reality.”
Peskov said the Kremlin had no information on the whereabouts of Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the mercenary Wagner group, who led the brief mutiny in protest at what he saw as the poor handling of military operations in Ukraine.
Under the terms of a deal that ended the mutiny, Prigozhin was to be allowed to move to Belarus, and his fighters were given the chance to sign contracts with Russia’s regular armed forces or to move to Belarus with him.
Peskov said the deal ending the mutiny was being implemented, and that Putin always kept his word.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Andrew Osborn/Gareth Jones; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
