Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the private military company Wagner and commander of the Wagner mercenary force in Ukraine, is supposed to be in Belarus with his 25,000-strong Wagner force. On 28 June he issued first statement to explain his feud with the Russian Ministry of Defense.

He noted that the Wagner mutiny on 23 June was not a coup designed to overthrow the government in Moscow but a “march for justice”, a form of protest against the Defense Ministry’s plans to incorporate the Wagner into the regular army. 

“The Wagner are perhaps the most experienced and capable military force in Russia, and possibly in the world. […] As a result of intrigues and unwise decisions, this force was ordered to cease its existence from 1 July 2023. A council of [field] commanders rallied and passed all information to their fighters: yet no one agreed to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense,” Prigozhin said in an audio message via his Telegram channel. 

Just 2% of Wagner fighters “switched the sides,” according to Putin’s former ally.

Had the Wagner become part of the Russian regular army, they would have lost their skills and would have been used as cannon meat at the Ukrainian frontlines, Prigozhin explained, renewing accusations of incompetence within the Ministry of Defense but not attacking President Vladimir Putin personally, implying that the latter was misled by his top generals.

What is this game about?

Prigozhin, a decorated Hero of Russia, demanded earlier that Sergey Shoygu, another Hero of Russia, and General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov, a Hero of Russia too, be sacked for erratic decisions and incompetence, suggesting that his ally General Sergey Surovikin (yes, a Hero of Russia) take command of the armed forces while his friend and Tula region governor Alexey Dyumin (yes, a Hero of Russia, too) assume the ministerial office. 

Surovikin had already held the command of all Russian armed forces in Ukraine before being replaced by Gerasimov in 2022, and Dyumin was a deputy defense minister in 2015-16.

Valery Gerasimov, Vladimir Putin, Sergey Shoygu.