Kremlin sacks TASS chief for Wagner mutiny coverage

Sergei Mikhailov, the head of the Russian state-run TASS news agency, was dismissed from his post in early July for detailed coverage of the Wagner mercenary group's mutiny.

That's according to The Moscow Times, which cites sources in government circles and the Russian presidential administration, Ukrinform reports.

According to sources, the Kremlin decided that Mikhailov, who headed TASS for 11 years, cast the Russian authorities in an unfavorable light. In the early hours of June 24, TASS was one of the first to publish photos from Rostov-on-Don, clearly proving that Wagner fighters had taken the city center and blockaded the Southern Military District headquarters.

"Some kind of insanity has happened to them. They have forgotten that their main task is not to report the news. It's to create an ideologically correct narrative for the Kremlin," a Russian government official said.

Two longtime acquaintances of Mikhailov said that the Russian authorities were extremely unhappy with the departure of the TASS head from Moscow during the mutiny. At the same time, Mikhailov himself stated that he was working in his office during the mutiny. He did not comment on the reasons for his resignation.

The fact that Mikhailov was planning to stay at TASS was confirmed to The Moscow Times by several agency employees who corresponded with him shortly before his resignation. "We discussed with him our work tasks for late 2023," one of the employees told The Moscow Times.

Andrei Kondrashov, the deputy general director of state-run VGTRK and former spokesman for Putin's 2018 election headquarters, was named as Mikhailov's replacement. A source told The Moscow Times that under Kondrashov's leadership, amid the Russian-Ukrainian war and ahead of the presidential election, the agency should be more aggressive, provocative and less neutral.