The Russian internal troops, the National Guard, will receive heavy weapons, including tanks, said the Director of the Russian National Guard, Viktor Zolotov, at a press conference after Vladimir Putin's speech on the Cathedral Square of the Kremlin. According to Zolotov, this has already been "discussed with the president."

Talking to reporters, Zolotov said that the soldiers of the National Guard worked competently during an attempted armed rebellion over the weekend. To prevent bloodshed, the National Guard worked together with the FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Zolotov praised the work of law enforcement agencies.

He expressed the opinion that the rebellion of the Wagner Group was prepared by the western special services, because "they knew about it a few weeks before it began."

He also noted that any provocations in Moscow, if they had occurred during the rebellion, would have been suppressed. When asked by journalists how to explain the rapid advance of the rebels across the country, Zolotov explained that all forces were concentrated near Moscow.

"We knew that we would win, the rebels would not have taken Moscow," the head of the National Guard emphasized.

He added that in the future, any spontaneous rallies, riots, or provocations "will be suppressed."

On June 24th, the founder of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, started an armed rebellion, demanding the resignation of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. On Saturday night, Prigozhin’s mercenary units captured Rostov and took control of military facilities in Voronezh, and then moved to Moscow. Having crossed half the country, the Wagner mercenaries stopped 200 kilometers from the Russian capital. After the intervention of the Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, Prigozhin said that his group was returning to their places of permanent deployment.

  Prigozhin, Wagner, Russia

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