Vladimir Putin’s closest allies on the world stage said that they had him on Saturday, before Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin called off an attempted coup – while Russia’s neighbors bolstered security along their shared borders and China’s Xi Jinping remained silent.
With the threat of violence still looming, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged “full support” for the struggling Russian leader in a Saturday morning phone call, the Kremlin said, while Erdogan’s office called for a “peaceful and calm” solution to the crisis.
Iran has also declared its tough friendship with Putin, as Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani state media reported that the mullahs “support the rule of law within the Russian Federation.”
Meanwhile, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a key Putin ally, said he brokered a take care of Prigozhin to finish the militia’s advance on Moscow and begin negotiations with the Kremlin.
![In a televised speech on Saturday, Putin announced that anti-terrorist measures had been introduced in Moscow and other regions of Russia.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000013144606.jpg?w=1024)
![Putin said the armed revolt of Wagner's mercenaries was...](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000013144546.jpg?w=1024)
But Russia’s two closest neighbors, Latvia and Estonia, announced they might take immediate motion to guard their residents from any consequences of the growing insurgency.
The whole lot it is advisable know in regards to the Wagner Group’s attack on Russia
The top of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and his mercenaries won’t face charges and can as an alternative be exiled, despite an armed rebellion against Moscow on Saturday, the Kremlin said.
Prigozhin, the owner and founder of a mercenary organization, called for an armed rise up and threatened to attack Moscow to remove a minister he accused of bombing his war camps in Ukraine.
![](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/25.2N.RussiaMap_page-0001.jpg?w=1024)
Nonetheless, Prigozhin eventually agreed to halt the Wagner Group’s advance on Moscow, just 120 miles from the capital, after the mercenary leader’s all-day negotiations with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who was given permission by Vladimir Putin to make a take care of Progozhin.
Putin’s presidential plane left Moscow early on Saturday, sparking rumors that he had fled the Russian capital as Wagner Group mercenary forces approached town.
President’s plane was spotted on airborne radar flew northwest from Moscow to the vicinity of St. Petersburg – but then disappeared from the system near town of Tver, reported the BBCwhere Putin owns a big rural retreat.
READ MORE
Edgars Rinkevics, Latvia’s foreign minister, tweeted that his nation did sealed its border to all “Russians leaving Russia attributable to current events” – adding: “Currently there isn’t any imminent threat to Latvia.”
![Russia's National Anti-Terrorist Committee announced a counter-terrorist operation in Moscow, Moscow and Voronezh regions to prevent possible attacks.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000013150381.jpg?w=1024)
![Members of Wagner's private mercenary group are stationed near the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don, Russia.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000013147792.jpg?w=1024)
“We see evil fighting evil,” Rinkevics told the Washington Post.
Estonia has also announced that it’ll achieve this add security forces along its border, Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said she was in “close contact” together with her counterparts in Latvia, Lithuania and Finland – 4 of the countries that saw a wave of Russians fleeing when Putin expanded conscription last yr.
US Western allies took a wait-and-see approach, with French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and others saying they were “monitoring the situation closely.”
“What we’re witnessing is an internal Russian affair,” European Union spokesman Nabila Massrali told CNN.