Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has broken his silence after his Belarus exile to call for support.

The warlord defended 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.’

Yesterday is the first time Prigozhin has spoken since he fled to Belarus in a deal 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 Russian president Vladimir Putin and insist he had only called his troops back to ‘avoid a bloodbath’.

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Prigozhin arrived in Belarus the next day, where he has not been seen in public since.

However, a plane linked to Prigozhin has reportedly been seen flying several times between Belarus, Moscow and St Petersburg, according to the Belarusian Hajun Project’s report of Flightradar24 data.

Wagner fighters were 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.

But Wagner appeared to still be actively seeking recruits on Monday, according to ads seen on its Telegram channel which said ‘job openings’ were available for a ‘prestigious’ unit fighting in ‘the zone of the special military operation’.

People who wanted to join were told to delete their social media because recruiting had ‘become more complicated’.

Last week, the BBC pretended to be someone inquiring about enlisting with the group on behalf of a brother and reported it was told business was going ahead as usual, with no one believing they were being disbanded.

Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu also spoke out yesterday, saying: ‘The [coup] plans failed because members of the armed forces remained faithful to their oath and military duty.’

Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko previously said Prigozhin and his troops would be welcome to stay in his country ‘for some time’ at their own expense, and that ‘security guarantees have been given’.

He also revealed he had offered an abandoned military base to the group and satellite images have since shown one undergoing rapid construction.

Images captured by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 2 satellites on June 27 show rows of long structures in the village of Tsel, which appeared empty on June 14.

There are fears this may become the Wagner Group’s new HQ, with neighbouring Baltic countries expressing concern over how this affects regional security.

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