A statement issued by the government of Nicolás Maduro rejects the armed uprising against Vladimir Putin in Russia by the Wagner Group, a mercenary company that has acted with the Russian military in the war against Ukraine. The declaration occurs four years after, according to Reuters, it received several of its members to reinforce presidential security.
in 2019 the spanish newspaper The country reported: «Russian military contractors traveled to Venezuela a few days ago to reinforce the security of Nicolás Maduro in the face of opposition protests, Reuters has learned. The agency, which cites several sources, points out that the mercenaries are members of what is known as the Wagner Group.an obscure private security company with ties to the Kremlin that has already been present in places like Ukraine, Syria, Sudan or the Central African Republic, according to different investigations.
british news agency Reuters had published that “private military contractors carrying out secret missions for Russia traveled to Venezuela in recent days to assist with the security of President Nicolás Maduro in the face of US-backed opposition protests, two people close to the companies said.” The sources informed them that 400 members of the Wagner Group were supposedly in Caracas. One of the informants even stated that the first contingents had already arrived in Venezuela in 2018.
In March 2019, an Antonov An-124 plane and an Ilyushin II-62 passenger aircraft landed in Maiquetía, under the command of the head of the Main Command of the Russian Land Forces, Vasili Tonkoshkurov. A large group of soldiers in uniforms without official insignia, who are suspected to be Wagner’s, were seen coming down from those planes. remember Infobae.
At that time the Wagner Group was still considered an underground army. The disclosure came with the war in Ukraine.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, admitted in September 2022 that eight years earlier he created the Wagner Group, a private military company, something prohibited by law in Russia, and that he was participating in the military campaign in Ukraine. Among other things, Prigozhin said in that statement that his mercenaries are “heroes who defended the Syrian people and other peoples of Arab countries, the helpless Africans and Latin Americans.”
Now in June 2023 Putin and the Wagner Group are showing themselves as oil and water, after the latter launched an armed rebellion against the Kremlin. Weeks earlier, Prigozhin had been involved in a power struggle with Russian military commanders, whom he accuses of his troop casualties in eastern Ukraine.
This Saturday, June 24, Prigozhin accused the Russian military command of ordering bombardments against the bases of his paramilitary group and of having killed many of its fighters. Wagner’s boss said that Russian military officials had to be “stopped” and promised to “go all the way.” His fighters took the southern city of Rostov, setting their sights on Moscow where their troops began to mobilize.
*Read also: Head of the Wagner Group withdraws to its bases to avoid bloodshed in Russia
Hours later, Prigozhin announced that his fighters will return to their bases after approaching 200 kilometers from Moscow, to avoid bloodshed. It was the result of the mediation carried out by the President of Belarus, Alexandr Lukashneko, between the oligarch and Moscow according to his presidential office. “Yevgueni Prigozhin accepted the proposal of the Belarusian president on the advance of Wagner’s troops on Russian territory and future steps to reduce tensions,” the Belarusian Presidency assured on Telegram and also collected the official agency, Belta.
Minsk noted that an “absolutely beneficial and acceptable option to resolve the situation, with security guarantees for Wagner’s fighters” is currently on the table. In addition, the Kremlin stated that Yevgeny Prigozhin “will go to Belarus” once his military rebellion is defused.
The uprising against Putin by the Wagner Group generated a reaction of solidarity with the Russian president by the government of Nicolás Maduro, through a statement in which it qualifies the group that previously also served as an ally as terrorists, according to journalistic reports.
In a statement published by his Foreign Ministry, Maduro “strongly condemns the irrational threat of the Wagner group and its leader Yevgueni Prigozhin to promote an armed insurrection in the Russian Federation, through terrorist methods.”
In addition, he rejected “the use of external forces” that “attack the sovereignty” … Russian.
#Release| Venezuela strongly condemns the irrational threat of the Wagner group and its leader Yevgueni Prigozhin to promote an armed insurrection in the Russian Federation, through terrorist methods. pic.twitter.com/QlYRYhZxbk
— Yvan Gil (@yvangil) June 24, 2023
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