stopped a civil war following the aborted wagner rebellion, and insisted his rule was not weakened. putin also claimed today that wagner was wholly funded by the russian federal budget. he said in the past year alone since the assault on ukraine moscow had paid the wagner group around $1 billion in salaries. 0ur eastern europe correspondent sarah rainsford has been following these developments from warsaw, in particular the messages coming from vladimir putin. i think what we re seeing happening in today is all about trying to rewrite the narrative and to reassert this kind of image of vladimir putin as a man in control. to try to suggest that throughout this crisis he was decisive and he was on top of what was going on. so we saw those images of him flanked by his security forces inside the kremlin compound and thanking them for what he said was their heroic action during the events of the weekend, remembering the pilots who actually shot
telling them they had stopped a civil war following the aborted wagner rebellion, and insisted his rule was not weakened. putin also claimed today that wagner was wholly funded by the russian federal budget. he said in the past year alone since the assault on ukraine moscow had paid the wagner group around i billion dollars in salaries. the us treasury department announced sanctions on four companies and one person who had deals with the wagner group, saying they exploit insecurity around the world. prigozhin was previously sanctioned by the us, eu, canada, and the uk. 0ur mayenijones has more from kyiv. this week s failed mutiny in russia has certainly been a morale boost for ukraine. president zelenskyy said that it exposes the chaos at the heart of mr putin s administration and shows that he s a lot weaker than the world thought that he was. it s also been an opportunity for mr zelenskyy to reach out to nato allies and remind them that
ukraine is the first line of defence if there were to be any chaos in russia. this has resulted in more aid coming from australia and the us towards ukraine and really is an effort by nato to show that it s fully backing ukraine at a time when it s trying to recapture territory in the east and the south of the country. how well that s going, president zelenskyy says his troops are advancing or all fronts but his deputy defence minister released a statement today saying her troops were also focused on the city of bakhmut which was the centre of fierce fighting between ukrainian and russian forces earlier this year. it became incredibly symbolic because it made wagner troops said it captured the city and mr prigozhin used that to emphasise that waghorn was central to russia s so called special military operation. if ukrainian forces are successful in recapturing bakhmut, it would be a further blow to president putin at a time when he is looking weaker than the
on. so we saw those images of him flanked by his security forces inside the kremlin compound and thanking them for what he said was that heroic action during the events of the weekend, remembering the pilots who actually shot down and killed during that much of the wagner mercenaries on moscow. although the circumstances of that are still unclear. so about, as i say, reasserting this idea that putin is strong. at the same time today we have been hearing more about what has been happening to yevgeny prigozhin. it has been confirmed by the belarusian president he has arrived in belarus, that his plane landed this morning, and that he will be given somewhere to stay there. he has been told that he can bed down there for a bit if he wants to and the belarussian s will essentially look after him. and, indeed, his aim forany look after him. and, indeed, his aim for any hugger militants who want to follow and join him militants who want to follow andjoin him in militants who want to follow an
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s exile in Belarus was part of a deal between Kremlin and Belarus that ended the Wagner mutiny in Russia in less than 24 hours after it began.