Kiev, June 24 (EFE).- The Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, said this Saturday that the rebellion of the Wagner mercenary group against the army and the Russian authorities reveals the “weakness” of Moscow and the self-destructive drift that it would have taken the country by launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia’s weakness is evident,” Zelensky said in his first public reaction to events in the neighboring country. “The longer Russia keeps her troops and her mercenaries in our lands, the more chaos, pain and problems she will create for herself,” added the head of the Ukrainian state, where politicians and analysts celebrated the uprising.
Zelensky accused Russian President Vladimir Putin – without mentioning him by name – of “choosing the path of evil” and “destroying himself” in doing so.
Zelensky boasts of unity in Ukraine
“He sends columns of soldiers to destroy lives in other countries and cannot stop them from fleeing and betraying him when they meet with resistance,” the Ukrainian president wrote in his note, posted on Telegram.
“He despises the people and sends hundreds of thousands to war to end up hiding in a barricade near Moscow from those he himself armed,” Zelensky said, referring to the Wagner group, which is carrying out its uprising after having gained power from his starring role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“We maintain our strength, our unity,” Zelenski concluded his message. “All our commanders and all our soldiers know what they have to do,” stressed the president of Ukraine.
“Beginning of a civil war,” says an adviser
The adviser to the Ukrainian presidential office Mikhailo Podoliak, one of the most influential in the administration of Volodimir Zelensky, said today in statements to the media that the rebellion of the Wagner mercenary group against part of the Russian army represents “the beginning of a civil war ” in that country.
“We are witnessing today the beginning of a civil war,” Podoliak was quoted as saying by the Ukrainian public news agency Ukrinform.
Ukraine’s intelligence and security services spoke on Saturday morning about the Wagner group’s rebellion in Russia, celebrating the outbreak of civil war in that country as an important step towards ending the Russian invasion of its territory and the collapse of the President Vladimir Putin.