Yevgeny Prigozhin could boast that 25,000 members of his mercenary army were loyal to himbut it seems that faith quickly evaporated when Team Wagner’s rebellion was left… unfinished 200 kilometers outside of Moscow.

In emails analyzed by BBC Verify, Wagner’s mercenaries and their relatives were furious at Prigozhin’s decision to halt his dramatic advance on Moscow and withdraw from the occupied city of Rostov. “Bald waste of space single-handedly destroyed Wagner PMC. And c@@@ anyone he could,” an alleged Wagner fighter fumed on Telegram in a Telegram channel with 200,000 followers. ‘‘It was another senseless riot’, he added.

Telegram is the social media platform of choice for Wagner fighters and pro-war circles in Russia, often allowing anonymous communication with thousands of followers at a time. It was there that Prigozhin chose to announce the so-called “March of Justice” against the Russian regime, but now it has become the online place where many have turned against him.

Mark Krutov, a reporter for RFE/RL’s Russian service, has access to Telegram group chats used by relatives of Wagner fighters. He shared some of their messages with the BBC.

”They just betrayed them,” one woman wrote. ”I trusted Prigozhin, but this what he did is dishonorable”.

“He shouldn’t have done that. This is pure treason,” another user agreed.

Others took refuge in conspiracy theories.

Wagner PMC Briefs is a channel that Prigozhin has confirmed as an official Wagner page and is run by one of his soldiers. He noted that when Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the mutiny, he did not name anyone. “[Ο Πούτιν] he did not name “the mutineers and traitors,” he said. “Perhaps to leave Prigozhin to restore justice and punish those who were guilty of actual treason which resulted in failure [της εισβολής της Ρωσίας στην Ουκρανία]?”

The theory that Putin and Prigozhin conspired to stage a coup attempt in order to “test the loyalty of the Russian elites” quickly gained traction on social media. “Girls, I thought everything was orchestrated to remove Shoigu, but through Prigozhin, shouldn’t Putin do it himself?” asked one woman in a conversation among Wagner’s relatives.

Volodymyr Fresenko, head of the Penta Center for Applied Policy Research in Kyiv, he disagrees.

“Why was it staged (Prigozin’s advance on Moscow)?” So everyone can see how weak Putin is?” commented. “What happened was a public humiliation of Putin. And Prigozhin? He lost part of his reputation: he used to show off his power and then he just backed down.” But Prigozhin’s public comment on the day of the recorded mutiny after he agreed to stop , continues to fuel speculation online. “We had a good result today,” said Wagner’s “boss”. ”He made everyone happy…”.

Meanwhile, the Russian president on Monday night paid tribute to the pilots who were killed in the aborted mutiny by the mercenary company, indirectly confirming reports by Russian bloggers that helicopters and planes had been shot down by the rebels.

“The courage and self-sacrifice of the fallen hero pilots saved Russia from tragic catastrophic consequences,” the Russian president said during his address to citizens yesterday, the first since the Wagner mutiny ended on Saturday.