Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin assured on Monday that their goal of armed rebellion was not to overthrow the “democratically elected government”. Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that the mercenaries turned back “to avoid bloodshed.”

“We regret that we hit the Air Force, but that’s because they were dropping bombs. (…) Not a single soldier died on the ground. (…) The goal was to prevent the destruction of Wagner and bring to justice those who made so many mistakes during the special operation,” said Prigozhin, whose whereabouts are unknown and in his first statements after the uprising which resulted in Russian forces being on standby throughout the weekend.

Similarly, Prigogine pointed out that if Wagner’s mercenaries was ahead about the first operations on Ukrainian soil after the announcement of a “special military operation” – with reference to the Russian invasion of Ukraine – clashes would continue for several dayss., — picked up the news portal Meduza.

“Our actions revealed serious security breaches throughout the country.: blocking all airfields and military units. after 24 hours we covered a distance similar to that which the troops traveled towards Kyiv on February 24 and from there to Uzhgorod,” the Wagner leader emphasized.