©Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service/TASS
The West should not worry about Russia's national interests; the country has emerged stronger from all troubles, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at an online briefing on Friday.
"Thank you for your concern about our national interests, but you shouldn't feel worried," Lavrov said, responding to a question from Reuters. About the attempted mutiny in Russia Lavrov said that "Russia has always emerged stronger from any trouble."
"This will be the case this time," he stressed. "Moreover, we already feel that this process has begun." Lavrov added that the attempted mutiny in Russia brought to mind only one epithet - "much ado" - and could hardly be described in a different way.
Lavrov recalled how last Saturday some Western officials, in their comments on the internal political situation in Russia, said that "the facade of the Russian authorities has cracked" and that they were doing everything right with regard to Ukraine. Lavrov pointed out that in this way the Western officials acknowledged that it was they (and not Ukraine) who were at war with Russia.
Lavrov also recalled the European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell’s statement that the West was doing the right thing by arming Ukraine and called for stepping up arms supplies to Kiev.
"This is an indirect, but very clear, explicit recognition of who is at war against whom," Lavrov pointed out. "So, thank you for your concern, but we can handle it ourselves," he concluded.
Attempted military mutiny
On the evening of June 23, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the PMC Wagner, said on his Telegram channel that his units had been attacked, and accused the military leadership of Russia. The Defense Ministry dismissed these allegations as false. PMC Wagner units who agreed to support Prigozhin headed for Rostov-on-Don and towards Moscow. The FSB opened a case over the call for armed mutiny.
President Vladimir Putin in a televised address described the PMC Wagner’s actions as treason.
Later, by agreement with Putin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko held talks with Prigozhin. The PMC Wagner’s convoys turned back and returned to the field camps. The Kremlin said that the authorities would not prosecute PMC Wagner personnel for taking part in the mutiny in light of their accomplishments on the frontline. The criminal proceedings over the attempted armed mutiny were terminated, the FSB said.
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