Kremlin says Wagner PMC does not legally exist

The issue of the status of private military companies will be considered by the Russian authorities in the future, but for now, the Wagner PMC "does not exist and has never existed" as a legal entity. This was stated by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. He added that "the complex issue of legal status should be studied," Russian media quoted him as saying.

In this way, the spokesman repeated the words of Vladimir Putin, who commented for the first time on the meeting with Yevgeny Prigozhin and mercenaries of his Wagner PMC, which took place in the Kremlin five days after the mutiny they organized.

"Well, the Wagner PMC does not exist! And we don't have a law on private military organizations! It just doesn't exist!" the Russian dictator declared. Then he hesitated: "There is a group, but it does not legally exist."

In this way, Putin admitted that the Wagner PMC had been outlawed all these years, as private military companies cannot legally exist in Russia.

At the same time, Putin had previously stated that the maintenance of Wagner's mercenaries was "fully provided by the state."

"From the Ministry of Defense, from the state budget, we fully funded this group," he said.

According to him, from May 2022 to May 2023, the Wagner PMC received about 86 billion rubles from the state for salaries and incentive payments, plus about 110 billion for insurance payments to the wounded and families of the deceased.

Background. It was also reported that Prigozhin and his companies received at least $16 billion from the Russian budget.