'Didn't want to...': Wagner Group chief's first public remarks after one-day 'mutiny' against Putin

Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose revolt against Russian President Vladimir Putin triggered panic in Kremlin, on Monday said his private army wanted to register a protest over the ineffectual conduct of the war in Ukraine, not to overthrow the government in Moscow.

The chief of Wagner, a private military group in Russia, last week blasted the Russian defence ministry, saying it failed to provide his troops with enough ammunition during the fight for Ukraine's Bakhmut, the war's longest battle. He also claimed that Putin was tricked into launching an attack on Ukraine.  

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Prigozhin, a former close confidant of Putin, attacked Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and began a march towards Moscow. However, he halted the march "to avoid the bloodshed".    

Two days after ending his mutiny, Prigozhin on Monday talked about the causes of the revolt and march to Moscow and why he stopped the move. 

The Wagner chief suggested that one of the causes behind the revolt was the Russian government's move to bring his military under the Defence Ministry. "As a result of intrigues and ill-considered decisions, this unit (Wagner) was supposed to cease to exist on July 1," he said.

"The council of commanders gathered, which brought all the information to the fighters, and no one agreed to sign a contract with the ministry of defence, as everyone knows perfectly well... that this would have led to a complete loss of combat capability," Prigozhin said.

He said those fighters who decided that they were ready to transfer to the ministry of defence did transfer, but this was a small amount of 1-2 per cent. "The decision to transfer (Wagner) to the defence ministry was taken at the most inopportune moment," he said.

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Speaking on the march, Prigozhin said the aim was to prevent the destruction of the Wagner and to bring to justice those persons who made a huge number of mistakes during their "unprofessional actions".

"We started our march because of injustice," the Wagner Group chief said, adding that they didn't kill a single soldier on the ground. "In one day they reached a point just 200 kilometers from Moscow, (and) they took complete control of the city of Rostov."

Prigozhin said Wagner gave a master class on how the march should have been done on February 24 last year, the day Russia attacked Ukraine. "We did not have the goal of overthrowing the existing regime and the legally elected government," the Wagner boss said. He also explained why he stopped the march towards Moscow. "We turned around in order not to shed the blood of Russian soldiers."

Wagner stopped at the moment when the first assault detachment, which came to 200 km from Moscow, deployed its artillery, did a reconnaissance of the area and it became obvious that a lot of blood would be shed at that moment, Prigozhin said. "Therefore, we felt that demonstrating what we were going to do was enough."

The Wagner chief further said that the decision to turn around was based on two important factors. "The first factor is that we did not want to shed Russian blood. The second factor is that we were registering our protest and not seeking to overthrow the government of the country."

At this time, Prigozhin said, Belarusian President Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko extended his hand and offered to find solutions for the further work of the Wagner within a legal jurisdiction.

(With inputs from Reuters)