MOSCOW - In a video published by his ministry on Monday, Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defense minister, is heard speaking to soldiers. This is his first known public appearance since a mutiny by the Wagner mercenary organization.
The video was silent, and it wasn't immediately obvious when or where the visit had occurred. Shoigu and a companion were seen flying in a jet and listening to reports at a command post administered by the Russian Zapad (West) military organization.
According to the Defense Ministry TV station Zvezda, Colonel General Yevgeny Nikiforov, the group's commander, had given Shoigu, who appeared physically uninjured and composed, a report on the state of affairs on the front lines in Ukraine.
Renegade Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin asked that Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff, be given over to him during his mutiny during which he took control of Russia's military headquarters in southern Russia so that he might "restore justice."
Prigozhin had long pushed for the men's ouster, accusing them both of egregious ineptitude and corruption. Since then, Gerasimov has not been seen in public, and the Kremlin made no mention of any fresh personnel changes when it reported the agreement that had put an end to the mutiny.
The Kremlin said that President Vladimir Putin alone had the authority to decide whether to make personnel changes, therefore they could scarcely have been a condition of any agreement.
According to Zvezda, Shoigu learned about the creation of additional reserve forces for the "Zapad" military grouping during his visit and took notice of the Russian army's "high efficiency" in "detecting and destroying enemy military equipment and accumulations of personnel in tactical areas."
According to the report, he had given them the job of conducting active reconnaissance to learn about the enemy's preparations to obstruct Ukrainian forces' movements deep behind the front lines.
Shoigu had reportedly given special attention to "the organization of all-around support for the troops involved in the Special Military Operation and the creation of conditions for the safe housing of personnel," according to Zvezda.
On Saturday, Prigozhin-led rebels pushed toward Moscow in an effort to overthrow what they viewed as Russia's corrupt and inept military leadership, but they abruptly withdrew and returned to a region of eastern Ukraine that was under Russian control after Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, negotiated a deal with the Kremlin.
According to the Kremlin's official description of the agreement, the mutineers' criminal charges were dropped in exchange for their return to the camps, and Prigozhin was reportedly relocating to Belarus.
