The leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, broke his silence on Monday after the rebellion against Moscow to say that no one from the paramilitary company has signed any agreement with the Kremlin.
In an 11-minute audio posted on the Telegram social network, Prigozhin assures that “no one from the Wagner Group agreed to sign any agreement” with the Kremlin and that the withdrawal was solely aimed at avoiding “bloodshed by Russian soldiers.” “We went to show our protest and not overthrow power in the country,” Prigozhin said, in the first message since the rebellion group’s withdrawal to Moscow.
According to Prigozhin, the Wagner Group “was threatened with dismantling by” the Russian authorities.
The leader of the mercenary group also assured that the mutiny was aimed at saving the Wagner Group and never focused on the overthrow of the Russian government, headed by Vladimir Putin.
In addition, Prigozhin warned of “serious security failures” in Russia that shows the rebellion of the group he leads, having “blocked all the military infrastructure” when they stopped 200 kilometers from Moscow, and assures that they had popular support in the cities to where they passed.
“In Russian cities, civilians greeted us with Russian flags and Wagner symbols,” Prigozhin said, describing: “Everyone was happy when we passed them.”
The mercenary leader also said that the President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, offered help for the Wagner Group to continue operating.
“Lukashenko came up and offered to find solutions for the continuation of the work of the private military company Wagner in a legal jurisdiction,” Yevgeny Prigozhin said.
In the audio message, the leader of the Wagner Group did not reveal his location.
in update
Source: TSF
