Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief of the Wagner Group claimed that he didn’t intend to overthrow the federal government in Russia, within the first audio message since calling his forces to revolt on Saturday.
Prigozhin claimed that his name had been supposed to register a protest on the ineffectual conduct of the conflict in Ukraine, to not overthrow the federal government in Moscow.
Prigozhin spoke in an 11-minute audio message launched on the Telegram messaging app.
“We went to demonstrate our protest and not to overthrow power in the country,” Prigozhin mentioned within the first audio message since calling off the Wagner march on the weekend.
He famous that the march on Moscow over the weekend had proven up “very serious security problems” in Russia.
He mentioned the best way it had been capable of seize the southern Russian metropolis of Rostov-on-Don with out bloodshed and to ship an armed convoy to inside 200 km of Moscow had been testomony to the effectiveness of his fighters.
“We showed a master class, as it should have been on Feb. 24, 2022. We did not have the goal of overthrowing the existing regime and the legally elected government,” he mentioned in an 11-minute audio message launched on the Telegram messaging app.
Prigozhin renewed an allegation, to this point unsupported by proof, that the Russian army had attacked a Wagner camp with missiles after which helicopters, killing about 1,000 of its males, and mentioned this had been the speedy set off for what he referred to as a “march of justice.”
Wagner stopped its advance towards Moscow in the meanwhile when it realized that it must confront ready Russian troops, and that blood would inevitably be shed, he mentioned, reiterating an assertion he made on Saturday.
Prigozhin, a former shut ally of President Vladimir Putin, careworn that Wagner had not spilt a drop of blood on the bottom throughout its northward march, however regretted that his fighters had needed to kill Russian servicemen who attacked their convoy from helicopters.
He additionally as soon as extra complained a few army order that each one volunteer models together with Wagner are supposed to signal by July 1 putting themselves beneath the management of Russia’s Defense Ministry.
Fewer than 2% of Wagner’s males have signed up, Prigozhin added.
“The aim of the march was to avoid the destruction of Wagner,” he mentioned.
In the recording, Prigozhin didn’t tackle any of the questions nonetheless surrounding the settlement brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that introduced the mutiny to an finish.
The Kremlin mentioned on Saturday that the deal had included dropping a legal case in opposition to Prigozhin and his transferring to Belarus.
Prigozhin, who was final seen in public being pushed in a sport utility car out of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday night, didn’t say the place he was when he recorded his assertion.
Belarusian President Lukashenko has proposed methods through which Russia’s Wagner mercenary group might proceed to function, Prighozin mentioned within the audio recording
“Lukashenko held out his hand and offered to find solutions for the continuation of the work of the Wagner private military company in a legal jurisdiction,” Prigozhin mentioned.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
