Since the march on Moscow was called off, Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, has been at a switch station. Now he speaks for the first time in an audio message – and defends his actions.
According to Prigozhin, the uprising of the Russian mercenary group Wagner revealed “serious security problems” in Russia. For the first time since the aborted weekend uprising, Prigozhin spoke in an 11-minute audio message on Monday that did not reveal his whereabouts.
Prigozhin wanted to “save his own troops”
Prigozhin stressed that he did not want to overthrow the Russian leadership, but to save his own troops. This was threatened by integration into the regular Russian army, he added. “We were going to demonstrate, not to overthrow the authorities in the country,” the 62-year-old said in a voice message distributed via Telegram.
It is unclear where the Wagner boss currently resides. He was last seen when the Wagner mercenaries retreated from Rostov-on-Don. The months-long power struggle between the mercenary chief and the Russian military leadership had escalated on Friday night. Wagner fighters invaded Russia from Ukraine – Prigozhin said the aim was to overthrow the military leadership in Moscow. In Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, troops there took over the headquarters of the Russian army.
In exile in Belarus?
Surprisingly, after about 24 hours of rebellion, he took a turn on Saturday night and ordered his mercenaries to return to their camps. According to the Kremlin, he and his mercenaries should go unpunished and Prigozhin should go into exile in Belarus. However, the Russian prosecutor’s office said on Monday that Prigozhin will be further investigated.
The Wagner boss now said in his audio message that the military column of his troops had advanced 780 kilometers into Russia and reached about 200 kilometers from Moscow. The mercenaries “blocked all military infrastructure”, including air bases along the route. “The march has exposed serious security problems in the country,” he said. At the same time, he assured that citizens in towns along the route had supported his people. “The citizens came to us with Russian flags and Wagner badges. They were happy when we arrived and passed them.”
Wagner Group must “continue to operate legally”
Prigozhin also paid tribute to the fact that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko enabled a mediated solution on Saturday, which led to the end of his people’s uprising. Lukashenko “offered to find solutions so that the Wagner group can continue to operate legally,” the mercenary boss stressed.
Source: Krone
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