ROME, June 25. /TASS/. NATO fears a nuclear incident, therefore "informal contacts" took place between the alliance and the Russian Defense Ministry on the situation with the Wagner PMC, La Repubblica newspaper reported on Sunday.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is "considered the most reliable interlocutor," the newspaper notes. According to its version, the central themes of the talks between "US President Joe Biden and the heads of European states and governments," among whom Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was not present, were precisely avoiding the risk of escalation and "preventing a nuclear incident."
According to the newspaper, NATO's attention was focused on more than 1,400 nuclear warheads ready for immediate use. La Repubblica said the West wanted to make it clear immediately that its "forces have no role in the actions the insurgents dare to take."
On the evening of June 23, several audio recordings were posted on Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Telegram channel. He particularly claimed that his units had come under attack, which he blamed on the country’s military authorities. The Federal Security Service (FSB) launched a criminal probe into calls for armed mutiny. The Russian Defense Ministry slammed the allegations of a strike on the PMC Wagners "rear camps" as fake news.
Putin, in a televised address to the nation on Saturday, described the Wagner group’s actions as armed mutiny and betrayal, vowing to take tough measures against the mutineers.
Later on Saturday, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, in coordination with Putin, held talks with Prigozhin working out a de-escalation plan. Later, Prigozhin said that PMC Wagner was halting the movement of its convoys which appeared to be headed toward Moscow, turning them back and returning to field camps. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that a criminal case against the Wagner chief would be dropped, while Prigozhin himself would go to Belarus. Besides, the Russian authorities pledged not to prosecute those at PMC Wagner who took part in the mutiny because of their "frontline merits.".