Russian president Vladimir Putin fled Moscow during the brief mutiny led by Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, a report claimed. Self-exiled former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky told Newsweek that he was monitoring the movements of the Russian president during Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion on June 24. The Russian leader had left Moscow by plane during the failed coup, and most likely was at his residence in Valdai, he said.
Vladimir Putin was largely absent during the mutiny, he added.
Who is Mikhail Khodorkovsky?
Mikhail Khodorkovsky is a former Russian oil executive who headed the energy company Yukos before spending a decade in prison in Russia for “politically motivated charges”. He had criticized the Russian leader over endemic corruption at a televised meeting in early 2003. He was pardoned by the Russian president in 2013 but was designated a “foreign agent” by the Kremlin.
What Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Vladimir Putin?
Mikhail Khodorkovsky said, “We were monitoring Putin at that moment. And it looks like indeed, he did leave Moscow, and most likely went to Valdai to his residence.”
A plane “which is only used by Putin” departed from Moscow on June 24 and headed to Russia’s northwest, he said. The aircraft disappeared from a flight tracker “somewhere around Valdai”, he informed citing unnamed sources.
“Leaders, all sorts of heads of different departments, indeed, a lot of them left Moscow as well. So this is exactly why I thought at the time that the opposition had a chance. But…Prigozhin’s mutiny came to nothing very fast,” he continued.
What other claims have been claimed?
Leonid Nevzlin, a Russian-Israeli businessman and Putin critic who renounced his Russian citizenship, tweeted on June 24 that “Putin is hiding in the bunker of his residence in Valdai.”
“His closest friends and associates also flew there. The dictator is in a panic. Additional troops advanced towards Valdai to protect it. This has just been reported by my sources,” he tweeted.
Ukrainian outlet Ukrainska Pravda quoted Kyiv intelligence sources as saying, “We already have information that Putin is leaving Moscow. He is being taken to Valdai” while journalist Boris Grozovski wrote in a post for the Wilson Center think tank on June 30, “During the day, as the mutiny was unfolding, Putin fled Moscow and reportedly spent the next twenty-four hours at his Valdai estate.”
