Putin Admits Wagner Was Funded by Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted on June 27 that the Wagner private military company was fully funded by the Russian government over the past several years and received tens of billions of rubles from state coffers.
I want to point out and I want everyone to know about it: The maintenance of the entire Wagner Group was fully provided for by the state. From the Ministry of Defense, from the state budget, we fully financed this group.
—Vladimir Putin
Plausible deniability: From May 2022 to May 2023, the Russian state paid more than 86 billion rubles (us$940 million) to the Wagner Group. This admission came after years of Putin adamantly denying that the Wagner mercenaries were at all connected to the Russian government. Putin conveniently used “plausible deniability” to further Russia’s interests without being held accountable.
On June 23, the Wagner mercenary group attempted a coup on Moscow, bringing Russia to what some believed to be the verge of a civil war. Wagner’s mutiny ended when its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, made a deal with Putin and Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko: The fighters would retreat to avoid prosecution and Prigozhin would flee to Belarus.
Prince of Russia: Analysts have been saying for years that Putin is behind the Wagner Group. The recent confirmation shows more clearly that Vladimir Putin is the prophesied “prince of Russia” the Bible talks about in Ezekiel 38. Read our free booklet The Prophesied ‘Prince of Russia,’ by Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry, to better understand Putin’s prophesied role.