Wagner chief claims wide support from Russian public for march on Moscow

Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said Monday that his attempted insurrection against Russian President Vladimir Putin over the weekend was intended to be a political demonstration and claimed the move had wide backing from the Russian public.

“We started our march because of injustice,” Prigozhin said in a new audio file released on his Telegram channel. “We did not have the goal of overthrowing the existing regime illegally.”

Prigozhin, whose mercenary fighters captured a southern Russian city and military base Saturday before halting an advance just more than 100 miles from Moscow, said his “march of justice” was in response to corruption and bureaucracy.

He said Russian citizens met him and his fighters with Russian flags and emblems of the Wagner Group.

“They were all happy when we came and when we passed by,” Prigozhin said. “Many of them still write words of support.”

The Wagner Group has played a key role in the war in Ukraine, helping Russia take cities in eastern Ukraine, including Bakhmut in May.

But Prigozhin constantly attacked Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the commander overseeing Moscow’s war in Ukraine, for failing to supply enough ammunition and equipment.

His attacks grew more ferocious after taking Bakhmut last month and after the Kremlin ordered him to sign a contract by July 1 that would give Russia greater control over his private military company.

Prigozhin, who also rails against what he calls widespread corruption among elites and last month referred to the possibility of a revolution, released a video Friday that accused Moscow of lying about the war in Ukraine.

Russia’s Federal Security Service opened a criminal case against him just hours later, accusing him of inciting an armed rebellion.

Later on Friday, Prigozhin organized his men to successfully take Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia with little resistance before marching on Moscow. Putin quickly called the act a “betrayal” without naming Prigozhin directly.

With thousands of fighters behind his back, Prigozhin stalled about 120 miles outside of Russia’s capital city, reaching a deal with Putin in which he would be exiled to Belarus and the terrorism charges would be dropped.

Prigozhin on Monday confirmed the basis of the dispute was over a contract with the Ministry of Defense, which he said would have dissolved his mercenary company he founded in 2014.

“This [would] lead to a complete loss of combat capability, experienced fighters and experienced commanders,” he said in the audio. “We were categorically against what they wanted to do.”

Although the Russian Ministry of Defense disputes the attack on Wagner, Prigozhin in the audio also repeated his claim that he only mobilized his troops after a Russian military strike on a Wagner camp in Ukraine killed 30 of his fighters, calling it a “trigger” for the rebellion.

Prigozhin said he stopped outside of Moscow because he realized “a lot of blood would be shed.”

“We felt that the demonstration of what we were [doing] was enough,” he said. “We did not want to shed Russian blood.”

The Wagner chief also said his demonstration proved there were “serious security problems” in Russia.

“We showed the level of organization [of] the Russian army,” he said.