In a speech to the country this evening, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that “any attempt at blackmail is doomed to fail.”
Speaking from the Kremlin, the Russian president promised that those responsible for the weekend’s “criminal activity” would face justice.
In a statement, Putin claimed that the uprising was “criminal activity that is intended to weaken the country” and that the “organisers of this rebellion will be brought to justice.”
In a statement, he said that ‘any kind of blackmail is doomed to failure’ and that the mutiny leaders ‘wanted our society to be fragmented’.
He thanked the Russian public for its ‘support, patriotism and solidarity’ since the rebellion and Belarus’s Lukashenko for a peaceful resolution.
‘Virtually the entirety of Russian society… was united by its responsibility to defend their homeland,’ Putin said.
He also thanked Wagner officials who ‘took the right decision to stop and go back to prevent bloodshed’.
Putin added that most Wagner mercenaries are ‘patriots’ who were ‘used’ by organisers of the rebellion.
The uprising was ‘doomed to fail’ and that ‘its organisers, even though they lost their sense of right and wrong, couldn’t have failed to realise that,’ he continued.
Putin also accused Ukraine of being involved and calls the revolt ‘revenge for their failed counteroffensive’.
It comes after just a few hours earlier Russia claimed to have intercepted two British RAF jets over the Black Sea.
Earlier on Monday, Prigozhin revealed he ordered his fighters to halt their advance on Moscow because he ‘did not want to shed Russian blood’.
Prigozhin broke his silence since the failed military coup at the weekend and posted an 11-minute audio message where he failed to reveal his location – despite being exiled to Belarus.
There are currently unconfirmed reports that Progozhin is currently in Minsk – the capital of Belarus.
He said no-one agreed to sign a contract with the defence ministry and that his mercenary firm was bound to cease existence on July 1.
Prigozhin said: ‘We started our march because of an injustice.’
He claimed the decision to turn around the march on Moscow was because he and his fighters didn’t want to shed Russian blood.
Prigozhin also said it was not his aim to overthrow the Russian government but to demonstrate his anger with the actions of the Ministry of Defence.
The former Wagner leader also repeated his claim that his troops were attacked by Russian soldiers, saying 30 people died with more injured.
The militia revolted on Friday, with Prigozhin saying he wanted to punish defence minister Sergei Shoigu and army chief Valery Gerasimov for targeting his troops with rockets.
He said his troops had advanced 124 miles towards Moscow in the following 24 hours, with the city braced for war.
The uprising posed the biggest threat to Vladimir Putin’s leadership in more than two decades in power.
Putin had vowed to crush the rebellion – calling it a ‘stab in the back’ – and warned anyone involved in the ‘rebellion’ will ‘suffer inevitable punishment’.
The Kremlin denied reports he had fled the capital amid several claiming aircraft linked to the president were spotted flying out as Wagner forces close in.
Prigozhin, whose forces have spearheaded the Russian advance in Ukraine, claimed to have captured the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District in Rostov without firing a shot.
It came as Russian media speculated that Mr Shoigu and other military leaders had lost Mr Putin’s confidence and could be replaced.
Before the uprising, Mr Prigozhin had criticised Mr Shoigu and General Staff chief General Valery Gerasimov with expletive-ridden insults for months, accusing them of failing to provide his troops with enough ammunition during the fight for the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, the war’s longest and bloodiest battle.
Mr Prigozhin’s statement appeared to confirm analysts’ view that the revolt was a move to save Wagner from being dismantled after an order that all private military companies sign contracts with the Defence Ministry by July 1.
He said most of his fighters refused to come under the Defence Ministry’s command, and the force planned to hand over the military equipment it was using in Ukraine on June 30 after pulling out of Ukraine and gathering in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.
He accused the Defence Ministry of attacking Wagner’s camp, prompting them to move sooner.