Russian Defense Ministry Says Wagner Is Completing Handover of Its Weapons

A military column of Wagner private mercenary group drives along M-4 highway, which links the capital Moscow with Russia's southern cities, with smoke from a burning fuel tank at an oil depot seen in the background, near Voronezh, Russia, June 24, 2023. (Reuters)
A military column of Wagner private mercenary group drives along M-4 highway, which links the capital Moscow with Russia's southern cities, with smoke from a burning fuel tank at an oil depot seen in the background, near Voronezh, Russia, June 24, 2023. (Reuters)
TT
20

Russian Defense Ministry Says Wagner Is Completing Handover of Its Weapons

A military column of Wagner private mercenary group drives along M-4 highway, which links the capital Moscow with Russia's southern cities, with smoke from a burning fuel tank at an oil depot seen in the background, near Voronezh, Russia, June 24, 2023. (Reuters)
A military column of Wagner private mercenary group drives along M-4 highway, which links the capital Moscow with Russia's southern cities, with smoke from a burning fuel tank at an oil depot seen in the background, near Voronezh, Russia, June 24, 2023. (Reuters)

The Wagner mercenary group is completing its handover of weapons to Russia's regular armed forces, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday, more than two weeks after the group staged a brief armed mutiny.

The ministry said Wagner had handed over more than 2,000 pieces of equipment, including tanks and rockets, and more than 2,500 tons of ammunition.

The handover follows a deal with the Kremlin under which Wagner and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin called off their short-lived mutiny last month.

The Wagner fighters, who took part in some of the heaviest fighting of the war in Ukraine, were given the option of joining Prigozhin in exile in Belarus, joining Russia's regular armed forces or going home.

During the June 23-24 mutiny, the mercenaries took control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and shot down an unspecified number of military helicopters, killing their pilots, as they advanced towards Moscow.

Prigozhin said his men's actions were intended as a protest against what he called the corruption and incompetence of Russia's military leadership in its handling of the Ukraine war.

The mutiny is widely perceived as having posed the most serious challenge to President Vladimir Putin since he assumed Russia's presidency on the last day of 1999.

It was defused in a deal brokered by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko. Under that deal, which the Kremlin said was struck to avert bloodshed, a criminal case against Prigozhin and his fighters was dropped.



Iran Opposition Leader Karroubi to be Freed from House Arrest, His Son Says

Iran's presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi (3rd R) joins a crowd of supporters in Tehran June 17, 2009. REUTERS/Demotix/File Photo
Iran's presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi (3rd R) joins a crowd of supporters in Tehran June 17, 2009. REUTERS/Demotix/File Photo
TT
20

Iran Opposition Leader Karroubi to be Freed from House Arrest, His Son Says

Iran's presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi (3rd R) joins a crowd of supporters in Tehran June 17, 2009. REUTERS/Demotix/File Photo
Iran's presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi (3rd R) joins a crowd of supporters in Tehran June 17, 2009. REUTERS/Demotix/File Photo

Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi will be released from house arrest on Monday, state media reported, 14 years after he was detained for calling for a rally in support of protests that swept the Arab world in 2011.

"My father was told by security agents that his house arrest will end today," his son Hossein Karroubi told state news agency IRNA, adding that security agents would remain at the premises until April 8 due to security concerns.

The 87-year-old, ailing mid-level cleric has remained defiant, questioning the legitimacy of the clerical establishment in statements published by pro-reform websites.

After calling for a rally in solidarity with pro-democracy uprisings, Karroubi - along with ex-prime minister Mirhossein Mousavi and his wife Zahra Rahnavard, a prominent academic - were put under house arrest in February 2011.

They have not been put on trial or publicly charged, Reuters reported.

Former parliament speaker Karroubi and Mousavi ran for election in 2009 and became figureheads for Iranians who staged eight months of mass protests after a vote they believed was rigged to bring back hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Karroubi's son Hossein told pro-reform Jamaran news website that his father demanded the release of Mousavi.

"They told my father that the same process ... would be carried out for Mousavi within the next few months and Mousavi too would be released," the Jamaran website quoted him as saying.

Iran's judiciary made no comment.

Karroubi, like Mousavi and Rahnavard, had been under round-the-clock surveillance by security guards initially living in his home. But conditions improved in past years for Karroubi, with some family and politicians allowed to visit him.

Suffering from various medical complications, Karroubi has been taken to hospital several times for heart surgery and treatment.

During his election campaign, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian promised to make an effort for their release.