Abbas expresses support for Putin, a week after Wagner coup attempt

The president of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mahmoud Abbas expressed his support to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, a week after the failed and aborted coup attempt by the mercenary Wagner group.

According to a statement by the Kremlin today, the PA “initiated a phone call” between Putin and Abbas, in which they discussed the situation in Palestine and the Palestinian Fatah leader revealed his stance against the alleged coup attempt last week.

On 24 June, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russia’s primary mercenary company, the Wagner group, announced a march on Moscow against the Russian government and military leadership.

His uprising and call for Russians to oppose the government came after months of tensions with the Russian Defence Ministry over an apparent lack of arms supplies and reinforcements to the group’s fighters in Ukraine.

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It saw the mercenaries cross the border into Russia and take control of the city of Rostov-on-Don, as the group sent an armed convoy on its way to the Moscow in what looked to many like the start of a civil war.

The incident was short-lived, however, as Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko mediated a deal between the Russian government and the Wagner group, which allowed Prigozhin and his mercenaries to withdraw into Belarus in return for Moscow dropping charges of treason and any measures against them.

“The Palestinian leader expressed his full support for the actions of the Russian leadership to protect the constitutional order and law during the June 24 events”, the Kremlin statement said.

Abbas is one of the few world leaders who have shown support for Putin and his government throughout and after the alleged coup attempt, with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan also expressing his support on the same day of the incident.