Highlights: Vladimir Putin: "We have fully financed this group through the budget of the Ministry of Defense and the state budget..." The state paid the Wagner company salaries and incentive bonuses of 86.262 billion rubles, of which 70.384 million was in cash. The owner of the Concord company through contracts with the army and (despite the fact that all the maintenance of Wagner depended on the state), earned 80 billion ruble by providing food for the army. "I hope that during this time, no one stole anything or stole just a little. Of course, this too, we will find out," the president said.

Russia: President Putin announces that the state has financed the Wagner Group

After years of denials, the Russian president has just acknowledged that the Russian state was financing the Wagner Group. Without warning and without prior announcement, as is his custom, even for an important announcement, sitting behind his desk, a sheet of paper in hand, as if he had taken note of the accounts, President Putin made this statement in a smooth and unemphasized tone.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, speaks during his meeting with Russian servicemen at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, June 27, 2023. AP - Mikhail Tereshchenko

Text by: Anissa El Jabri Follow

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From our correspondent in Moscow

We have fully funded this group through the budget of the Ministry of Defence and the state budget. From May 2022 to May 2023 alone, the state paid the Wagner company salaries and incentive bonuses of 86.262 billion rubles, of which 70.384 million was in cash, premiums of 15.877 billion rubles, insurance payments of 110.179 million, while the owner of the Concord company through contracts with the army and (despite the fact that all the maintenance of Wagner depended on the state), earned 80 billion rubles by providing food for the army. The state took over the financial support and Concord, at the time in parallel, earned 80 billion. I hope that during this time, no one stole anything or stole just a little. Of course, this too, we will find out," the Russian president said.

Vladimir Putin: "We have fully financed this group through the budget of the Ministry of Defense and the state budget..."

Anissa El Jabri

Putin thanks soldiers who prevented 'civil war'

It is a long media sequence that Vladimir Putin began Monday evening, June 26 to show that he has the country in hand. After his short speech last night, stop at midday this Tuesday with a solemn ceremony with the security forces.

Red carpet on Cathedral Square, inside the Kremlin. Solemn speech by Vladimir Putin to his security forces: army, National Guard, FSB, Ministry of the Interior and FSO, the president's close guard.

In the confrontation with the rebels, our comrades-in-arms, pilots, died. They did not flinch and honorably fulfilled their military duty. I ask you to honour their memory with a minute of silence," the head of state said.

Above all, in the face of what appeared to the eyes of the world and to the eyes of the Russians as a wavering of order, the president also made this reminder: "The Ministry of Defense, the National Guard, employees of the Ministry of the Interior and special services have ensured the reliable operation of the most important control centers, strategic, including defence, installations, security of border regions, safety of the rear of our armed forces, those all military formations that continued to fight heroically at the front at that time. We didn't have to withdraw combat units from the special operation area

Justification of what happened, but also a way of slipping that the Russian army, even in the middle of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, can perfectly do without the ground of the Wagner units.

" READ ALSO Ukraine: "Russian troops act better today than at the beginning of the conflict"

Russia: President Putin announces that the state has financed the Wagner Group

Russia: President Putin announces that the state has financed the Wagner Group

Putin thanks soldiers who prevented 'civil war'

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