The Wagner group has been financed by the Russian budget, according to the country's president, Vladimir Putin. As Putin explained in a meeting with the military, the group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin received about a billion dollars (922 million euros, around 86,000 million rubles) in the period from May 2022 to May 2023.
It is the first time that the Russian authorities admit the close link between the Russian state and the group of mercenaries that was created in 2014 by Prigozhin and that has acted in various countries following the interests of the Kremlin. For years, the businessman denied that he had any relationship with Wagner. But in recent months he has admitted that he was the man who financed Wagner, along the lines of other military bodies that operate with private financing.
Putin's statements represent a new twist in the intricate reality of this military body that took up arms on Friday night, took Rostov-on-Don, and began a march towards Moscow with unclear objectives.
Precisely, Alexander Lukashenko has explained that Wagner's experience will be of vital importance for the Belarusian army, "especially for the assault corps". Lukashenko thus corroborates his willingness to accept an unspecified number of Wagner troops in his country, which has led to concern in neighboring countries such as Lithuania or Poland. Lukashenko has also confirmed the presence of his founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who arrived in Minsk this morning by private jet.
For his part, Viktor Zolotov, Putin's personal friend and director of the National Guard, explained that Wagner's columns reached the vicinity of Moscow on Saturday because the army (and in particular the corps he leads) had concentrated in the defense of the capital.
