Wagner Group is fully financed from state budget, it has received US$1 billion – Putin

The participation of Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) in the war against Ukraine is financed exclusively from the Russian state budget. The group received over a billion dollars in one year.

Source: video posted by the Russian media of Putin in the Kremlin, allegedly at a meeting with the military who restrained the assault of the Wagner Group

Quote: "The financing of the entire Wagner Group was fully provided by the state... Only from May 2022 to May 2023, the state paid 86 billion 262 million roubles [over a billion dollars – ed.] to the Wagner Group for monetary maintenance and incentive payments."

Background:

• On the evening of 23 June, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that the regular Russian army had launched a missile strike on the Wagner mercenaries’ rear camps. He therefore deployed 25,000 of his mercenaries "to restore justice".

• In an emergency address, dictator Vladimir Putin talked of betrayal and attempts to "organise a rebellion". Ukrainian intelligence had information that Putin had urgently left Moscow for his residence in Valdai.

• In the evening of the same day, after a conversation with the self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, Prigozhin said that his mercenaries were returning to set up field camps. The criminal case against Prigozhin in Russia was promised to be closed, and he was to "go to Belarus".

• According to Russian pro-war media and Telegram channels, during the rebellion, the Wagnerites shot down an Il-22M aircraft (command post) and 6 Russian army helicopters, killing 13 to 20 people. Also in Russia, 19 houses and roads were damaged by the march of Prigozhin's private army.

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