President Vladimir Putin paid respect to the pilots who lost their lives during the weekend mutiny on Monday, confirming prior claims made by military bloggers that Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner militia shot down numerous aircraft.
Wagner rebels overran Rostov-on-Don, a city in southern Russia, and the military command headquarters there on Saturday. They then drove an armed convoy as close as 200 kilometres (125 miles) to Moscow before calling off their uprising.
In his first speech to the public on the mutiny since the weekend events, Russian President Vladimir Putin remarked, “The courage and self-sacrifice of the fallen heroes-pilots saved Russia from tragic devastating consequences.”
