Russian state television on Sunday accused Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin of losing his mind after receiving billions in state money, illustrating a new narrative of power over the paramilitary group after its failed uprising, AFP and Agerpres said.

“Prygozhin went crazy because of large sums of money,” Dmytro Kisilyov, one of the main voices of the Kremlin’s media apparatus, said on his weekly broadcast.

“The sense of belief that everything is permitted arose a long time ago, during (Wagner’s) operations in Syria and Africa,” he continued. In his opinion, this feeling “intensified” after the capture of Soledar and Bakhmut in Ukraine by Prigozhin’s mercenaries this year.

“He thought he could stand up to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the state, and the president himself,” Dmytro Kisilyov said.

To illustrate this alleged delusion of Prigozhin’s grandeur, the host claimed, without providing evidence, that Wagner’s group had received 858 billion rubles (8.8 billion euros) of public money.

According to Kisilyov, “one of the main factors” of the “Wagner” rebellion is the refusal of the Russian Ministry of Defense to extend the lavish contracts signed with Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Concord catering group.

Last weekend’s uprising by Wagner’s group shocked the Russian authorities at the height of the conflict in Ukraine.

The fighters of Wagner’s group occupied the headquarters of the Russian army in Rostov (southwest) for several hours and marched several hundred kilometers towards Moscow.

The uprising ended on Saturday night with a deal in which Prigozhin was exiled to Belarus.

No sanctions have been announced against the rebels, but the future of Prigozhin’s business looks uncertain. Intelligence sites close to his group were blocked this week in Russia.

On Saturday, the group’s St. Petersburg headquarters, the Wagner Center, announced the move on Telegram, adding that it would continue to operate in a “new format.”

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that agents of the Federal Security Service (FSB) searched Wagner’s headquarters in St. Petersburg in search of evidence against Prigozhin.

Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that his mutiny was not aimed at overthrowing the government, but at saving Wagner’s group from collapse by the Russian General Staff, which he accuses of incompetence in the conflict in Ukraine.

In the last week, Prigozhin did not make any public statements.

On Sunday, Dmitry Kisilov disputed the notion that Wagner’s fighters were the most effective of the Russian forces, saying it took them “225 days” to capture Bakhmut, compared with “70 days” for the regular army to take control of the city of Mariupol. .