Wagner chief breaks silence on failed uprising

Source: Daily Mail

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has broken his silence since abandoning his armed uprising on Saturday evening, claiming his march on Moscow was a 'master class' on how Russia's assault on Kyiv should have looked.

Speaking in an 11-minute audio clip posted on Wagner-affiliated Telegram channels, Prigozhin said he only called off his group's surge for the Russian capital to avoid spilling Russian blood and said the uprising was intended to register a protest at the ineffectual conduct of the war in Ukraine, not to overthrow the government in Moscow.

He described his Wagner mercenary fighters as 'perhaps the most experienced and combat effective unit in Russia, possibly in the world', and said his private military company had done 'an enormous amount of work in the interests of Russia'.

And claimed he'd launched the uprising to 'prevent the destruction of the Wagner group', adding that they had been ordered to hand over their weapons to the Russian military and had also suffered casualties in air strikes at the hands of Russia's air force.

'The purpose of the campaign was to prevent the destruction of the Wagner PMC and to bring to justice those who, through their unprofessional actions, made a huge number of mistakes during the special military operation,' Prigozhin said.

It comes despite reports from Meduza that claimed the mercenary leader frantically called Putin en route to Moscow having realized he'd made a mistake, only for the Russian leader to ignore his call and serve a chilling reminder of who remains in charge.