US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken refused to comment on reports that Washington is communicating with Moscow in light of the armed rebellion announced by the "Wagner" company yesterday, Saturday.

Blinken said in a televised interview with NBC: "I will not go into the details of diplomatic contacts with Russia, but we certainly monitor the situation closely in the event of instability emerging in major countries, especially those that possess nuclear weapons.

The Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported earlier that NATO feared a nuclear accident in Russia in light of the armed rebellion announced by the "Wagner" military company yesterday, Saturday, after which it was alleged that contacts took place between the alliance and the Russian Ministry of Defense in this regard.

Early in the morning of Saturday, June 24, the forces of the Wagner Special Military Group captured the headquarters of the Southern Military District in the Rostov-on-Don province.

Russian President Vladimir Putin described the rebels' actions as a criminal adventure, a stab in Russia's back and treason.

Later, on Saturday, the press service of the President of Belarus announced that the founder of the "Wagner" group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had accepted Lukashenko's proposal to stop the movement of the group's militants in Russia and take further steps to calm tensions.

It noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin briefed his Belarusian counterpart this morning on the situation in southern Russia with the private military company "Wagner", and the two leaders agreed to work jointly.

This was followed by Prigozhin's personal announcement that his forces would stop moving towards Moscow, stressing that they had turned around and were now leaving in the opposite direction, returning to their camps on the contact lines.

Source: National Iraqi News Agency