Wagner’s revolt: the objective was “not to overthrow Russian power”, says Prigozhin

2023-06-26 18:30:52

Eleven minutes of explanations. The first, public, since the rebellion of the Wagner group against the Kremlin ended on Sunday June 25, after having started 36 hours earlier – already by audio message broadcast on Telegram. Evgueni Prigojine, Wagner’s boss, said on Monday June 26 that the objective of his brief revolt was not to “overthrow power” in the country but to save his paramilitary group, threatened with being absorbed by the army.

“The purpose of the march was not to allow the destruction of the Wagner Group and to hold accountable those who, through their unprofessional actions, committed a considerable number of errors during the special military operation” in Ukraine, he assured in his audio message, without revealing where he was.

The militia’s spectacular advance towards Moscow, however, revealed “serious security problems” in Russia, Yevgeny Prigojine continued, saying his men had covered 780 kilometers with little resistance. Above all, he noted, his men had received the support of the inhabitants of the localities crossed during his short rebellion: “The civilians came to meet us with Russian flags and Wagner emblems, they were happy when we arrived and passed next to them”.

Prigozhin repeated that his organization had shot down Russian air force aircraft, which Moscow did not confirm. “We are sorry to have had to fire on the air force, but they were throwing bombs and rockets at us,” he said. For months, he has been accusing Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valeri Gerasimov of incompetence and of having sent tens of thousands of soldiers to sacrifice. According to him, the ministry tried to dismantle Wagner by absorbing him, then struck one of his camps, killing thirty.

The boss of the paramilitary group also claimed that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who negotiated the end of the mutiny with the agreement of Vladimir Putin, had proposed solutions to allow Wagner to survive. “Alexander Lukashenko reached out and offered to find solutions for the continuation of the work of the Wagner group in a legal way,” he said.