Yevgeny Prigozhin made the first statement to the press after the uprising

The head of PMC “Wagner” Yevgeny Prigozhin appeared for the first time after the end of his “justice march” on his Telegram channels and made an 11-minute statement to the press. Where and when the recording was made is unknown, as is the current whereabouts of Prigozhin himself. Radio Svoboda publishes a brief synopsis of its address.

Prigozhin begins with the fact that PMC “Wagner” protects only the interests of Russia and achieved significant success in the war in Ukraine. But “as a result of intrigues and ill-conceived decisions, the PMC had to be dissolved on July 1.” Commanders and almost none of the fighters agreed to sign contacts with the Ministry of Defense of Russia, as they are sure that this will lead to a complete loss of combat capability. However, if the decision is not changed, they were going to leave on June 30 in a convoy to Rostov-on-Don and hand over their equipment to the Ministry of Defense.

Despite this, says Prigozhin, a rocket strike and an additional strike from Defense Ministry helicopters were launched against PMC positions. About 30 fighters were killed. The Council of Commanders of the PMC decided to immediately move forward with the “march of justice”. The task was to prevent the disbandment of the PMC and to bring to justice those who, by their actions, made a lot of mistakes during the war in Ukraine.

The march lasted 24 hours. One column entered Rostov-on-Don, the other moved to Moscow. “Wagnerovtsy” managed to cover 780 km in 24 hours, and in fact met no resistance. Prigozhin emphasized that not a single soldier of the Russian army was killed by his soldiers on earth. He regrets that he had to shoot down several aircraft that tried to bomb the column.

During the march, Prigozhin said, his forces blocked and neutralized all military facilities along the road, including airfields.

Among PMC fighters – two dead, several wounded. Both the dead, Prigozhin clarifies, were servicemen of the regular Russian army who decided to join the PMC.

According to Prigozhin, his armed units “stopped when it became obvious that a lot of blood would be spilled. They thought that the demonstration of what we were going to do had already been done enough.” He once again emphasized that the “Wagner” columns “went to demonstrate their protest, not to overthrow the government.”

The authoritarian leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, as Prigozhin said, “extended a helping hand and offered the opportunity to continue the work of PMC Wagner in a legal jurisdiction.” After that, the “Wagner” column returned to the field camps.

Prigozhin noted: “Our march showed big security problems on the territory of the country. We blocked all military units on our way. In 24 hours, we covered a distance equal to the distance from the place where the SVO started [так в России официально называют войну в Украине] to Kyiv or Uzhgorod. If there were people like us on February 24, 2022, the SVO would last a day. We showed the level of organization to which the Russian army must correspond. Peaceful residents of Russian cities greeted us with flags and were happy. We showed a master class of what February 24 should have looked like. We were not going to overthrow the regime.”

Prigozhin did not reveal the details of the negotiations with Lukashenko and the further plans of PMC “Wagner”.

• On Friday, June 23, the founder of PMC “Wagner” Yevgeny Prigozhin reported on alleged rocket attacks on the rear of “Wagner” by the Russian regular army. After that, he announced that 25 thousand “Wagner” fighters are going on an armed march to Moscow in order to bring to justice the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense, specifically Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.
• Within a day, columns of PMC “Wagner” actually managed to take control of Rostov-on-Don and, presumably, Voronezh. Russian President Vladimir Putin called Wagner’s performance treason. The FSB opened a criminal case against Prigozhin for incitement to rebellion.
• By Saturday evening, it became known about the negotiations between Prigozhin and the authoritarian leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. As a result of the negotiations, the advance of the “Wagner” columns towards Moscow was stopped. According to Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov, units of PMC “Wagner” are returning to their original positions, and Yevgeny Prigozhin will be able to leave for Belarus.