The rise of Wagner It was not a coup attempt, but a protest: “They were going to disband the unit on July 1, 2023 due to plotting and bad decisionsIn his first comments since putting an end to his brief rebellion, Wagner’s boss, Evgeny Prigozhinhas said that it called off its advance to prevent Russian bloodshed.
“The purpose of the march was to prevent Wagner’s destruction and bring to justice those who, through their unprofessional actions, made a large number of mistakes during the special military operation,” Prigozhin said in an audio message.
He assures that “he and his men were ready to go to Rostov on June 30 and hand over the military machine to the military.” But “we were targeted by a missile attack. And then the helicopters followed. About 30 people were killed, Wagner fighters. Some were injured. After this, the council of commanders decided that we had to get going immediately.”
Saturday, Wagner’s troops took control of a military base and moved in convoy to the capital of Russia, the most serious challenge to Vladimir Putin in his more than two decades in power. Full details of how he launched a march that was suddenly called off when an alleged deal was struck that would see Prigozhin go to Belarus is not yet known. He says that he had several wounded and two dead on his side.
The march on Moscow marked a drastic escalation in Prigozhin’s longstanding dispute with the Russian Defense Ministry, which he said today had planned for Wagner to “cease to exist” from July 1. “During the night, we covered 780 kilometers, there were about 200 kilometers to Moscow,” Prigozhin said in his message, despite the fact that there is no evidence that his forces have come so close to the Russian capital.