Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin broke his silence yesterday by saying that the aim of Saturday’s uprising was not to overthrow the Russian regime and that he was returning not to shed the blood of Russian soldiers. The “march for justice”, which took place 200 km from Moscow, was a “masterclass” of what should have been the February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he claimed in a new attack on military leaders. The 11-minute audio message was revealed on social media, but it did not clear the doubt: where is Prigozhin and what will be the future of the Wagner Group?
In a statement earlier in the evening, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that “the vast majority” of the mercenary group’s members are “patriots” and that their withdrawal avoided “a massacre”. He also claimed that the riot had stopped and that the organizers realized their actions were criminal, reiterating that “Any attempt at blackmail to sow internal unrest is doomed to fail.” Putin’s statements, which seemed annoyed, lasted five minutes.
Before retreating in his advance to Moscow, the mercenary group’s leader and founder will have struck an agreement with the Kremlin – negotiated through Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko (the opposition says he will only have served “postman” between Prigozhin and Putin). According to the agreement, the leader of the Wagner Group was amnestied and went into exile in Belarus. In his statement, Putin seems to reiterate that members of the group who do not want to join the Russian army – as required by law on July 1 – can also go there.
However, yesterday there was no official confirmation that Prigozhin was in this country, only unconfirmed information that he was seen in a hotel in Minsk. On Saturday night, he was seen getting into a car and leaving the Rostov-on-Don barracks – which his troops had captured. Russian media reported yesterday, citing sources in the Russian Attorney General’s office, that charges against Prigozhin had not been dropped. Several Russian deputies even demand his head.
In the message, Prigozhin said that Lukashenko was “offering solutions to enable the Wagner Group to continue its work in a legal manner”, without providing further explanation. According to unconfirmed information, a base for 8,000 fighters is being built in Belarus, in an area 200 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.
11 minutes from Prigozhin
“It was not our intention to overthrow the current regime and the legally elected government,” Prigozhin explained in his message. “The purpose of the march was not to allow the destruction of the private military company Wagner and to hold accountable those officers who committed an enormous number of mistakes through their unprofessional actions. Society demanded it”he said.
According to Prigozhin, the march started “because of injustice”, in response to an attack on one of his bases, which killed 30 fighters and then drove the group to extinction. Regarding the idea that his men, who played a key role in the war in Ukraine – namely in the capture of Bakhmut – will join the Russian army (they must do this before July 1), he said they had no contracts signed for that purpose.
Prigozhin also revealed that the march did not cause any deaths on the ground, but he expressed regret for shooting down a Russian helicopter, killing at least 15 soldiers. According to the leader of the mercenaries, they bombed his group’s vehicles. “We returned so as not to shed the blood of Russian soldiers,” he defended, claiming that he had stayed 200 km from Moscow in one day.
The leader of the Wagner Group also used his 11-minute message to criticize the Russian military, saying his march to the capital was a “masterclass” of what the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine must have been like. “We have shown a level of organization that the Russian army should have,” he said, also warning of the “serious security problems that exist throughout the territory”. He also said that “the citizens welcomed us with Russian flags and the Wagner symbol. Everyone was very happy when we passed”.
Prigozhin demands the resignation of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Video was released yesterday of this official on a plane with other military officials listening to a report from the ground. It is unknown when the video was recorded. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin admitted that the country faced a “challenge to its stability” and defended “the joining of forces” around Putin.
Western involvement?
Russia’s head of diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile, announced in an interview with Russia Today (RT) the opening of an investigation into the alleged involvement of Western secret services in Saturday’s uprising. According to this official, the US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, issued signals on Sunday that Washington had nothing to do with what happened. “It was repeated that the US assumes that everything that happens is an internal affair of the Russian Federation,” Lavrov said.
“We made it clear that we are not involved, we had nothing to do with this,” US President Joe Biden reiterated yesterday in initial post-event comments. “We have not given Putin an excuse to blame the West and hold NATO accountable,” he said, arguing that the events are part of a struggle within the Russian system. “We will continue to analyze the consequences of this weekend’s events and the implications for Russia and Ukraine. But it is still too early to draw a firm conclusion on where this will go,” he added at an event at the White House.
Portuguese Foreign Minister João Gomes Cravinho said that despite the “lack of clarity” about events, it can already be said that “there is no coherence” in Russia and that there is “some fragmentation of power”. In Brussels, before a meeting with his colleagues, he nevertheless stressed that the episode should not be seen as a distraction and that the European Union should remain focused on the essentials. “The key is to continue to support Ukraine.”
However, adviser to the Ukrainian president Mikhail Podolyak rejected the idea that any successor to Putin could be worse. “Sometimes we hear an opinion from our Western allies: whatever Putin is, today he will guarantee stability in Russia’s powder keg. to defeat him once and for all.
In the same interview with RT, Lavrov made a point of assuring African allies that the Wagner Group would not leave the continent. The group is mainly present in the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali. “At their request, several fighters are working as instructors in CAR. This work will of course continue. Both CAR and Mali have called on the Wagner Group to ensure the safety of its leadership,” said Lavrov, who denied that there was any ” panic” in these countries.
Source: DN
