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In a taped speech released by Russian state media, President Vladimir V. Putin said he gave direct instructions to avoid bloodshed during the mercenaries’ brief revolt and thanked his military.
The Ukrainian Army is encountering an array of challenges that has complicated the early stages of its counteroffensive, especially the large swaths of minefields. But its leaders are urging patience, insisting the main push is yet to come.
Neither Vladimir V. Putin nor the leader of the Wagner mercenary group made public appearances on Sunday, a day after an armed rebellion shook the nation.
The mercenary group had seized the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, the center of Moscow’s military operations in Ukraine, posing a grave threat to President Vladimir Putin’s government.
In a video posted Saturday and filmed from an undisclosed location, Vladimir Alekseyev, Russia’s deputy military intelligence director, called the Wagner private military group’s actions in Rostov-on-Don a “stab in the back” and “a coup.”
In a video posted early Saturday morning, the leader of the Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed to have seized power in Rostov-on-Don, a key Russian military district in the Ukraine war effort.
For more than two decades, the system helped President Vladimir V. Putin secure his unrivaled authority, ensuring that he personally held the keys to wealth and influence in modern Russia.
A Russian mercenary leader claimed he controls a military headquarters in southern Russia, and Vladimir Putin vowed to take action.
Men in military uniforms, whom filmers and bystanders identified as Wagner fighters, surrounded and then occupied a Russian military headquarters compound in the city of Rostov-on-Don on June 24.
A powerful mercenary chief sent his forces on the move against the Russian military establishment, raising tensions in the country to a level not seen in decades.