Less than two weeks since Russian president Vladimir Putin staved off an armed rebellion launch by Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, the latter released a rare voice message thanking supporters.
“I want you to understand that our ‘March of Justice’ was aimed at fighting traitors and mobilizing our society,” the former Putin ally said on Telegram on Monday morning. “In the near future, I am sure that you will see our next victories at the front. Thanks, guys!”
The comments coincided with an appearance by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on CNN in which he called Putin “weak.” “We see Putin’s reaction. It’s weak,” Zelensky said in a video interview. “All that vertical of power he used to have is just crumbling down.”
Putin “doesn’t control everything,” Zelensky said in a preview of the interview, which aired on Monday. “Wagner’s moving deep into Russia and taking certain regions shows how easy it is to do. Putin doesn’t control the situation in the regions.”
Prigozhin’s statement is the first since June 26, two days after he captured the city of Rostov-on-Don and led an armed column north through southern Russia before halting just over 100 miles from Moscow, the nation’s capital, following an agreement brokered by Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko.
The agreement will prevent “a bloodbath on the territory of Russia,” Lukashenko said at the time, claiming the deal is “absolutely advantageous and acceptable” for Wagner, without referencing specific details.
In the eleven-minute video message from late June, the military chief argued that the operation highlighted “serious security problems across our country,” but aimed to distance the Wagner Group from accusations that the action amounted to a coup. “It was never our goal to overthrow the current regime and legally elected government,” Prigozhin said.
The militia commander emphasized that he turned his troops back toward Ukraine before engaging with any Russian troops. “We turned around in order not to shed the blood of Russian soldiers,” he said.
Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin spoke for the first time since leading an armed rebellion to insist he had no intention of ousting Putin’s government.
"We turned around in order not to shed the blood of Russian soldiers," he said https://t.co/p1vWP3zzJm pic.twitter.com/4y2KrBqSmh
— Bloomberg (@business) June 26, 2023
“We started our march because of injustice. On the way, we did not kill a single soldier on the ground. In a day, we were only 200 km away from Moscow. We entered and completely took control of the city of Rostov. The civilians were glad to see us,” Prigozhin added. “The goal was to prevent the destruction of Wagner and bring responsibility to people who made a lot of mistakes. We determined that the demonstration up to that point was sufficient.”