Putin meets former Wagner commander Troshin, asks to form voluntary units in Ukraine

MOSCOW

Russian President Vladimir Putin met former commander of Wagner paramilitary group Andrey Troshev and asked him to form voluntary military units for Moscow's "special military operation" in Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Friday.

The meeting, in which Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov also participated, took place on Thursday evening at the Kremlin, the presidency's press service said in a statement.

Putin asked Troshev to form volunteer units that can perform various combat tasks in the operation zone.

"You yourself have been fighting in such a unit for more than a year. You know what it is, how it is done, you know about the issues that need to be resolved in advance so that the combat work goes in the best and most successful way," he said.

Troshev is a retired colonel, and former chief of staff of the Wagner group. He did not support Evgeny Prigozhin's short-lived armed rebellion against Moscow in June.

According to presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Troshev now works with the Defense Ministry.

After the failed mutiny, Putin on June 29 had a three-hour meeting with 35 Wagner commanders, and invited them to continue serving in the army under Troshev's leadership, but Prigozhin had refused.

On Aug. 23, a private plane flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg crashed in Russia's Tver region, killing all on board including Prigozhin and Wagner military commander Dmitry Utkin.