The attempted armed coup in Russia was unsuccessful thanks to the loyalty of Armed Forces personnel to the oath. Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said this during a conference call with the leadership of the Russian Armed Forces.
“These plans failed primarily because the personnel of the Armed Forces showed their loyalty to the oath and their military duty. The provocation did not affect the actions of the groups of troops. The servicemen courageously and selflessly continued to carry out the tasks assigned to them”, he said.
The Defense Minister also thanked the personnel of the Russian Armed Forces for “conscientious service”.
An attempt of insurgency by the Wagner PMC (or “march of justice”, as stated the founder of the group Yevgeni Prigozhin), began in the evening of June 23 and ended the next day after the intervention of Aleksandr Lukashenko. He stated that he had held talks with Prigozhin, as a result of which he managed to convince the rebel to stop “the march on Moscow”. Then Prigozhin himself announced that the Wagnerites were returning to the field camps, and the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said that the criminal case against Prigozhin was terminated and that the head of the armed formation would go to Belarus.
As long as the mutiny continued, Shoigu did not appear in the public space and did not comment on what was happening. It was not until June 26th that the Russian Ministry of Defense released a video which allegedly showed the head of the agency visiting a “forward command post” of the Russian troops. After the mutiny, according to Bloomberg, checks were conducted on Shoigu’s closest associates.
