In an audio message posted on Telegram on Monday, Prigozhin said the aborted uprising showed Russia had serious security problems.
Director of mercenary company Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin says in a recorded message that the purpose of the weekend uprising was not to seize power in Russia but to protest. Prigozhin commented on the matter for the first time after the events of the weekend, but did not reveal his whereabouts in the message.
– As a result of scheming and ill-considered decisions, the Wagner group was supposed to cease operations on July 1, 2023, said Prigožin.
Russia announced on Saturday that, at the end of the rebellion, it would merge the Wagner forces into the Russian armed forces and that the owner of the mercenary company, Prigozhin, would move to Belarus.
No one bowed to the agreement
According to Prigozhin, none of the troops agreed to sign a military service contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense.
– Everyone knew based on the current situation and their own experience during the “special military operation” that this would lead to a complete loss of combat capability.
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Russian leadership’s plan for the Wagner fighters remains unclear.
The Wagner forces have appeared to be returning to their training camps in southern Russia with their war equipment. ISW says this suggests the Kremlin intends to retain at least some of Wagner, rather than immediately seek to release the force from service.
However, the think tank estimates that the future of Wagner’s command and organizational structure is unclear. According to ISW, the possible effects of the agreement that ended Wagner’s rebellion on the management ladder of the Russian Ministry of Defense are also unclear.
Russian independent journalists Verstka-media wroteon Monday that camps for Wagner soldiers have started to be built in Belarus. According to the site, there are several camps. According to the site, one of the camps to be built can accommodate up to 8,000 fighters.
The reason for the dissatisfaction was the airstrikes
According to Prigozhin, the Wagner forces did not show any aggression, but a missile attack was made against them.
– The helicopters followed immediately after that. About 30 fighters of Wagner’s unit were killed. This led to the decision of the leaders of the Wagner forces to start their march, said Prigozhin in his message.
According to him, everyone at the march knew that the goal was to avoid the destruction of their own troops and to catch the parties in Moscow responsible for the poor military success.
The Wagner forces were not aggressive
– We stopped as soon as the first troops arrived 200 kilometers from Moscow. At the end of the inquiry, it became clear that bloodshed cannot be avoided and that’s why we decided to stop, said Prigožin.
According to Prigozhin, the first reason for retreating was to avoid bloodshed in Russia.
– Another reason was to only express our opinion, and not to try to overthrow the Russian leadership.
Security has weakened
However, according to the Wagner boss, the weekend march showed that the security situation in Russia has weakened everywhere in Russia.
– We prevented all the forces in our way and their bases from operating, said Prigožin.
Finally, Prigozhin praised the actions of the troops, saying they were so effective that if all Russian troops were the same, Ukraine would have been conquered in 24 hours.
– We showed the level of the troops, threatened Prigozhin.
In Russia, the intelligence service began to investigate whether Western intelligence services participated in the weekend events in Russia, said the country’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov In a video shown on Russia’s state-run Russia Today channel (RT).
However, Lavrov did not provide further details or evidence of a possible investigation.
Source: Reuters, STT