CNN
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In his first comments since ending a short-lived rebellion, Wagner’s boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said he called it off to avoid spilling Russian blood and that the uprising was a protest rather than a attempt to overthrow the government.
“The goal of the march was to prevent the destruction of PMC Wagner and to bring to justice those who, through their unprofessional actions, made a large number of mistakes during the special military operation,” Prigozhin said in an audio message, referring to Russia. invasion of Ukraine.
Troops from his private military group seized control of a military base and moved by convoy into the Russian capital on Saturday, a remarkable and unexpected challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The march was abruptly called off when an alleged deal was reached that would see Prigozhin move to Belarus.
The move to Moscow marked a drastic escalation in Prigozhin’s long-running fight with Russia’s defense ministry, which said on Monday it had planned for Wagner to “cease to exist” from July 1.
“Overnight, we have walked 780 kilometers (480 miles), 200 kilometers or so (125 miles) left to Moscow,” Prigozhin said in his message on Monday, despite no evidence that his Wagner forces are getting so close to the Russian capital.
“Not a single soldier on the ground was killed,” Prigozhin added. “We regret that we were forced to attack aircraft,” he said. “…but these planes dropped bombs and launched missiles.”
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko “reached out” and offered to find solutions to further the work of the Wagner Group in a legal way, Prigozhin said, reflecting the line that Minsk and the Kremlin have communicated on why of the march, which appeared for several hours. being an armed insurrection against the Russian state – ended suddenly.
The future role of Prigozhin or his Wagner group is unclear. The unit has become increasingly essential to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, but it is uncertain whether it will continue to exist in any meaningful way.
“We stopped at the moment when the detachment, which had approached Moscow, deployed its artillery, made a reconnaissance of the area, and it was clear that at that moment a lot of blood would be spilled. We felt it was enough to demonstrate what we would do,” Prigozhin said on Monday.
Russian President Putin has not spoken about the events since a televised speech on Saturday, in which he threatened severe punishment against those who carry out what he called an “armed rebellion”.
On Monday, the Kremlin released a pre-recorded video of Putin addressing the “International Youth Industrial Forum” from behind a nondescript desk flanked by Russian flags, but there was no information on when or where the clip was shot . In the short video, Putin makes no mention of last weekend’s events, focusing instead on the forum.
Prigozhin had previously accused Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general Valery Gerasimov of not giving their forces ammunition and was critical of their handling of the conflict, but always defended the reasoning of the military campaign and avoided criticizing Putin himself.
But he crossed those red lines over the weekend. Late on Friday, Prigozhin accused the Russian military leadership of killing its fighters during an attack on a Wagner camp, which the Russian Defense Ministry has denied.
What followed was a remarkable 24-hour standoff that apparently dented Putin’s reputation and sowed further discord and infighting in Russia’s military ranks.
