PILOTS KILLED BY MUTINEERS
Putin told those assembled on the Kremlin’s Cathedral Square on Tuesday that an unspecified number of Russian military pilots had been killed when trying to stop the advance of the mutineers – who wanted to oust the top military brass over what they said was their incompetence and corruption – on Moscow.
“In the confrontation with the insurgents our comrades-in-arms, the aviators died,” said Putin.
“They did not falter and carried out their orders and their military duty with honour.”
Putin then asked for a minute’s silence to honour the dead pilots.
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, whose removal Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin had demanded, was present on the square.
Putin said that Russia’s military-security apparatus had ensured that key command centres and strategic defence facilities had kept functioning and had been protected during the mutiny and that the security of border regions was guaranteed.
There has been no need, he said, to withdraw combat units from what he called the zone when Moscow is carrying out its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The mutineers and the people he said had been “dragged into the rebellion” had seen that the army and the people were not on their side, said Putin.
“The rapid and accurate deployment of law enforcement units made it possible to halt the extremely dangerous development of the situation in the country and to prevent casualties among the civilian population,” he said.
After he had finished speaking the Russian national anthem, which shares the same music as the Soviet one, was played.
