Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group that launched a brief uprising against Russian military command over the weekend, broke a long period of silence on Monday and again denied he had any intention of seizing power with his march on Moscow.
“We went there to demonstrate our protest and not to overthrow the government in the country,” he said in an 11-minute unconscious voice memo posted to messaging app Telegram. In the statement, he reiterated his harsh criticism of Russia’s military leadership, both for what he saw as shabby treatment of its fighters and their handling of the invasion of Ukraine.
Mr Prigozhin said the protest was aimed at an attempt by the Defense Ministry to force its mercenaries to sign contracts with the government, which he said would have virtually halted Wagner’s activities in Ukraine from July 1. The militants, Mr Prigozhin said, were planning to surrender their heavy weapons to the Russian army until they were attacked from behind on Friday night, killing at least 30 Wagner soldiers – a claim for which there was no independent evidence.
At the time, he said, he decided to send a group of fighters to take the city of Rostov-on-Don, home of Russia’s Southern Command about 60 miles from the border with Ukraine, and another group to Moscow to vent their anger to lend .
“The purpose of the campaign was to prevent the destruction of the Wagner PMC and to bring to justice those individuals who committed a large number of errors through their unprofessional actions in this process,” he said, indirectly referring to the leadership of the Ministry of Defense.
The Wagner founder has spent months attacking Russia’s military leadership, with whom Mr Prigozhin has long been at odds and whom he accuses of mismanaging the war effort. In Telegram posts that mixed self-aggrandizement with vulgar complaints, he accused military leaders of failing to stock his fighters with ammunition even as they engaged in one of the war’s bloodiest engagements, the capture of the devastated city of Bakhmut.
But Mr Prigozhin had not been heard from since he called off his mutiny on Saturday, adding to the confusion over an incident that had challenged Russia’s facade of political stability. Just hours after Russian President Vladimir V. Putin called him a traitor and vowed to hold him accountable, Mr. Prigozhin halted his advance on Moscow and agreed to withdraw from Rostov-on-Don under an agreement that drop the investigation against him and allow him to go to Belarus.
His voice memo is a sign that he wants to remain active in political and military affairs, according to some analysts. In it, Mr Prigozhin praised his fighters, saying they had shown professionalism and given the Russian public a “master class” on how last year’s invasion of Ukraine should have been launched. If Wagner had been in command, it would have taken only “days” to achieve Russia’s military goals, he claimed.
Although the Kremlin said on Saturday that the cessation of hostilities agreement – which Mr Prigozhin again accepted to avoid bloodshed – would drop the case against him, on Monday there were signs that charges could still be brought against Mr Prigozhin.
According to Russian media reports released on Monday, the criminal case against Mr. Prigozhin is still pending and the charges against him have not been dropped. Kommersant, a Russian newspaper, and the country’s three main news outlets – Tass, RIA and Interfax – all reported that the Federal Security Service (FSB) was pursuing investigations.
The publications, all of which were either state-controlled or affiliated with the Kremlin, cited anonymous sources, so their reports could not be independently verified. If the trial continues, Mr. Prigozhin faces up to 20 years in prison.
Even if the case is dropped, critics of Belarusian President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko have expressed doubts as to whether Mr Prigozhin would be safe there, given the government’s close ties to Mr Putin, who has been a crucial source of support for Mr Putin. Lukashenko.
Mr Prigozhin was last seen in public late Saturday, smiling and shaking hands with his supporters as he left the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don after declaring the end of his brief uprising and repelling the column of soldiers he had sent to a march To moskau.
Since then his whereabouts have been unknown. On Sunday evening, Mr Prigozhin’s press service told Russian TV channel RTVI that he “says hello to everyone and answers questions” when he has good cell phone reception.
Despite the harshness of Mr Prigozhin’s crackdown over the weekend, some Russian officials have been reluctant to criticize Wagner fighters who have proven effective, if brutal, in fighting for Russia in Ukraine and other conflicts.
Andrei Kartapolov, the chairman of the Russian parliament’s defense committee, said on Sunday that the Wagner fighters who took over the army headquarters in Rostov-on-Don “did nothing reprehensible” and simply “followed the orders of their command”.
“They didn’t offend anyone, they didn’t break anything,” he said. “Nobody has the slightest claim against them – neither the residents of Rostov, nor the military personnel of the Southern Military District, nor the law enforcement agencies.”