Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu arrived at the training grounds of the Southern Military District (SMD) in the Rostov Region. The video was published by the Ministry of Defense in the official Telegram channel two weeks after the rebellion and the departure of the head of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin from the Rostov region. When exactly the video was filmed is unknown.
The Ministry of Defense reported that Shoigu "checked the organization of combat training" of military personnel under the contract. The minister also checked the preparation and conduct of driving lessons and the performance of combat firing by tank crews of the T-90 "Breakthrough".
This time, the servicemen, judging by the video, had bullets. In October 2022, the Ministry of Defense published a video with Shoigu from the military training ground of the Western Military District during the preparation of the mobilized. At the same time, loud shots were heard on the footage, but the servicemen were not given cartridges, there were no clips in the weapons. It's possible that the gunfire sounds could have been overlaid on the original video later.
Prigozhin, who demanded that Shoigu be extradited to him during the rebellion in the Rostov region, did not comment on the minister's arrival. The last message in the official Telegram channel of his press service was published on June 26.
Earlier, the mayor's office of Rostov-on-Don announced that they would not recover almost 100 million rubles of damage caused during the June 24 rebellion from Wagner and Yevgeny Prigozhin PMCs. Funds for repair work, including road repair, are allocated from the city budget. At the same time, 10 billion rubles were returned to Prigozhin, which were confiscated from him on June 24 during searches in St. Petersburg, Fontanka found out.
After the riot that Yevgeny Prigozhin staged together with the fighters of the Wagner PMC (“justice march”), the authorities began to decide the fate of the “Wagnerites” and Prigozhin himself. Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly called Prigozhin a traitor and a traitor, and PMC mercenaries were again offered to conclude a contract with the Ministry of Defense, despite Prigozhin's refusal to do so before the rebellion. The Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko suddenly appeared to the public with a statement about negotiations with Prigozhin and stated that Prigozhin himself and part of his mercenaries had left for Belarus by agreement. After that, the authorities began to block Prigozhin’s resources: at the end of June, Roskomnadzor restricted access to the websites of Prigozhin’s media holding Patriot, the websites of all publications are inaccessible. Prigozhin himself dissolved the media holding, the information was confirmed by a source in the company to Mash. RIA FAN, Narodnye Novosti, Nevskiye Novosti, Ekonomika Segodnya and many other publications that are part of the holding stopped working.