Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner Group military company, has broken his silence after his Belarus exile to call for support.
The warlord pushed last month’s attempted coup on the Russian government and then called on the public to back his mercenary army.
In a clip released on Telegram, he said: ‘Today, we need your support more than ever! Thank you for that.
‘I want you to understand that our march for justice was to fight the traitors and to mobilise our society. I think we succeeded in a lot of that.
‘In the near future, I am sure that you will see our next victories on the front, thank you guys.’
The clip is the first time Prigozhin has spoken since he fled to Belarus in a deal with Russian president Vladimir Putin that ended his short-lived mutiny on the weekend of June 23.
The last time he spoke out was on June 26, when he took to Telegram to deny his ‘march for justice’ was an attempt to overthrow Putin and insist he had only called his troops back to ‘avoid a bloodbath’.
Prigozhin arrived in Belarus the next day, where he has not been seen in public since.
Wagner fighters have since been forced to hand over their military equipment to the Russian Armed Forces, the Kremlin’s defence ministry said.
The troops, many of whom are violent criminals hired directly from prison, were told to choose between joining the Russian army, returning to their families or leaving for Belarus.
