Russian Defense Ministry releases video showing Shoigu in helicopter and meeting at military barracks in Ukraine amid rumors of his dismissal
After 488 days of war in ukraine, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said Russia faced “a challenge to its stability” and needed to remain united around the president. Vladimir Poutine. The government meeting led by Mishustin was broadcast on television in an attempt to bring peace of mind to the country after the weekend rebellion led by the leader of the Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin.
President Putin reappeared this Monday, around noon, in a video released by the Kremlin in a youth forum called “Engineers of the future” after many media outlets pointed out that nothing was known about him.
In another gesture of normality, the Ministry of Defense released a video of the minister hours before Sergei Shoigu visiting Russian troops taking part in the military operation in Ukraine, but it was unclear when or where the video, which had no sound, was taken amid rumors of his dismissal.
This is the first public appearance of Choigou, which would deny his dismissal and that of the chief of staff, Valeri Guerásimov. This was one of the claims of the leader of the Wagner group in his weekend rebellionwho ended up with his mercenary 200 kilometers from Moscow.
The fate of Prigozhin, who would have accepted exile in Belarus, cannot be verified beyond his departure from Rostov-on-Don. At the moment, the criminal case against him is still open.
The extraordinary events have left governments both friendly and hostile to Russia searching for answers about what might happen next in the country with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.
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