Prigozhin has made his first statement since the end of his abortive coup. The following from the BBC:
Characteristically, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is highly critical of Russia's security forces in his latest audio message.
He said his march on Moscow on Saturday revealed "most serious security problems across the entire country," claiming that his units had managed to block "all" Russian military units and airfields in their path.
Prigozhin claims the Wagner mercenary group had support in the towns it went through during its short-lived rebellion.
He also claims his forces covered 780km (484 miles) in their march towards Moscow from the south - equivalent to the distance Russian forces took on 24 February last year (when they started their invasion in Ukraine) from the Ukrainian border to Kyiv, and onto Uzhgorod, a city in the far west of Ukraine on the border with Hungary and Slovakia.
He says if forces like Wagner's troops had carried out that first attack, "the special military operation in Ukraine" would have been over much sooner.
More from Yevgeny Prigozhin's 11-minute audio message now.
Speaking about the conditions of the deal that was reportedly done in order to bring the Wagner rebellion to a halt over the weekend, Prigozhin claims the group was "categorically against the decision to close Wagner on 1 July 2023 and to incorporate it into the defence ministry".
Commanders refused to accept the request to sign contracts with the Russian ministry of defence, he adds. In exchange, he claims around 30 of his men "were killed by Russian attacks" - the BBC hasn't verified this claim.
Prigozhin also says that Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko played a part in the deal, stating that Lukashenko "extended his hand and offered to find ways for Wagner to continue its work legally" - without giving further details.
Notably, Prigozhin didn't reveal where he was in the video message he shared on Telegram. It has been reported that as part of the deal, Prigozhin had agreed to go to Belarus.
It seems pretty clear that the Wagner thugs are loyal to their thuggish leader. It's unclear what will happen when the Russian MOD tries to take over the mercenary organization. I suspect we're not hearing the end of this, and that there will be further outbreaks of hostilities between Wagner thugs and the Russian military (different type of thugs). It wouldn't surprise me if we started to see desertions from Wagner in Ukraine. I don't see them blithely following orders from the Russian military.
The key question is what will Lukashenko do with Prigozhin? I don't see the latter disappearing quietly and, as others have pointed out, there is risk that Prigozhin creates a Wagner 2.0 in Belarus which would represent a direct threat to Ukraine.
