Putin Vows To Punish Wagner's Mercenary

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to punish Wagner's mercenary group for their mutiny against the federation.

According to the autocrat on Monday, the leader of the mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin would face charges despite previously pardoning him.

Prigozhin had led his mercenary on a march halfway to Moscow, the Russian capital but later retreated to avoid bloodshed.

The Wagner's leader led the march to oust the Russian military hierarchy to exact revenge for the ambush that killed "scores of his men".

In response, Putin described Prigozhin's action as a "stab in the back", adding that the federation would take "brutal" actions against Wagner's mercenary group threat.

Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) had filed charges of mutiny against the Wagner leader for leading the march against Russia.

However, the charges were withdrawn and Prigozhin would be moved to Belarus, Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

The moving of Wagner to Belarus according to Peskov was part of the deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to end their rebellion.

Howbeit, a Russian-state media, TASS said the investigation against Wagner had not been closed, according to a source in the prosecutors general's office.

In a followed up response, Putin added that the rebellion was a “criminal activity which is aimed at weakening the country”.

Putin added that "any kind of blackmail is doomed to fail" and that the mutiny leaders "wanted our society to be fragmented".

“The uprising was doomed to fail and its organisers, even though they lost their sense of right and wrong, couldn’t have failed to realise that,” he concluded.