Photo: LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images
The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, said this Saturday that the rebellion of the Wagner mercenary group – led by Yevgueni Prigozhin – against the Russian army and authorities reveals Russia’s “weakness” and the self-destructive drift that the country would have taken. by launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia’s weakness is evident,” Zelensky said in his first public reaction to events in the neighboring country. “It is a total weakness. The longer Russia keeps her troops and her mercenaries on our lands, the more chaos, pain and problems it will create for itself, ”added the Ukrainian head of state. Zelensky accused Vladimir Putin, without mentioning him by name, of “choosing the path of evil” and “destroying himself” in doing so.
“He sends columns of soldiers to destroy lives in other countries and cannot prevent them from fleeing and betraying him when they meet resistance,” Zelensky wrote in his note, published on Telegram, in which he assured that Ukrainian troops are capable “of protecting Europe of a contamination of evil and Russian chaos”, something that he considers already obvious, in light of the results of the ongoing war.
“We maintain our unity”
Putin “has contempt for the people and sends hundreds of thousands to war to end up hiding on a barricade near Moscow from those he himself armed,” Zelensky said, referring to the Wagner group, which is carrying out its uprising after having gained power through his leading role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia has used propaganda to hide its weakness and the stupidity of its government. And now the chaos is such that no one can lie about it anymore,” she added. Following Putin’s speech on the rebellion, in which he compared Wagner’s attempt to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution that rocked Russia when it was fighting World War I, Zelensky said the current course of the Russian Federation can only lead to a horizon similar to that of then.
“We maintain our strength, our unity,” added the president. “All our commanders and all our soldiers know what they have to do,” closed the president of Ukraine.