Pres. Putin speaks to allies in Belarus, Central Asia after Wagner mutiny

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This video grab taken from handout footage posted on June 24, 2023 on the Telegram channel @razgruzka_vagnera shows Yevgeny Prigozhin (C) speaking with Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseev (R) and Russian Defende Deputy Minister Yunus-Bek Evkurov (L) inside the headquarters of the Russian southern military district in the city of Rostov-on-Don. Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, once a close Putin ally, said his troops had taken control of the military command centre and bases in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, the nerve centre of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, and vowed to topple Moscow’s top military leaders. (Photo by Handout / TELEGRAM / @razgruzka_vagnera / AFP)

MOSCOW, June 24, 2023 (AFP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday spoke to his Belarus ally, President Alexander Lukashenko, in his first international phone call since a mutiny by Wagner mercenaries inside Russia.

“The president of Russia called the president of Belarus this morning, there was a phone conversation,” Belarusian state media reported.

“Vladimir Putin informed his Belarusian colleague about the situation in Russia.”

Lukashenko, who allowed Russian troops to use Belarusian territory as a launchpad for their Ukraine offensive, has remained Putin’s closest ally.

The Kremlin later said Putin also spoke to the president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and the president of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

“The president informed them about the situation (in Russia),” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

According to Kazakh media, Tokayev told Putin that events in Russia were an “internal affair,” and Putin thanked him for his “understanding” of the situation.

Putin, who has few allies on the international stage after launching the Ukraine offensive last year, called the Wagner mutiny a “stab in the back.”

(FILES) (COMBO) This combination of photos shows Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) attending a meeting with a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, specialist in applied and fundamental endocrinology Ivan Dedov, at the Kremlin in Moscow on June 23, 2023, ** Editor’s note : this image is distributed by Russian state owned agency Sputnik **, and Yevgeny Prigozhin (R) prior to a meeting with business leaders held by Russian and Chinese presidents at the Kremlin in Moscow on July 4, 2017. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, vowed on June 24, 2023 to “go to the end” to topple the Russian military leadership, whom he accused of launching strikes on his men, while the country’s prosecutor general said he was under investigation for “armed rebellion”. “We will destroy everything that stands in our way,” he added in the most audacious challenge to President Vladimir Putin since the start of the offensive in Ukraine last year. (Photo by GAVRIIL GRIGOROV and Sergei ILNITSKY / SPUTNIK / AFP)