Prigozhin denies trying to overthrow Russian government

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Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner private military group, has denied trying to overthrow the Russian government when his forces marched on Moscow over the weekend.

In an 11-minute voice recording posted on Telegram on Monday, Prigozhin said he had instead intended to signal his objection to a recent decision to disband the militia as well as demonstrate the weakness of Russia’s domestic defences.

“We didn’t have the goal of toppling the existing regime, which is lawfully elected, as we have said many times,” said Prigozhin, who did not refer to President Vladimir Putin by name.

“Our decision to turn around came from two important factors,” he added. “The first was that we did not want to spill Russian blood. The second, we were marching to demonstrate our protest, not to unseat the government.”

“The goal was to prevent the destruction of the Wagner [private military company] and to hold to account those who, with their unprofessional actions, made a huge amount of mistakes during the special military operation,” Prigozhin said, using the official Russian euphemism for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

This is a developing story