Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the private army of prison recruits and other mercenaries who have fought some of the deadliest battles in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, escaped prosecution for his abortive armed rebellion against the Kremlin and arrived Tuesday in Belarus. The exile of the 62-year-old owner of the Wagner Group was part of a deal that ended the short-lived mutiny in Russia. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko confirmed Prigozhin was in Belarus, and said he and some of his troops were welcome to stay “for some time” at their own expense.
Prigozhin has not been seen since Saturday, when he waved to well-wishers from a vehicle in the southern city of Rostov. He issued a defiant audio statement on Monday. And on Tuesday morning, a private jet believed to belong to him flew from Rostov to an airbase southwest of the Belarusian capital of Minsk, according to data from FlightRadar24.
Meanwhile, Moscow said preparations were underway for Wagner’s troops fighting in Ukraine, who numbered 25,000 according to Prigozhin, to hand over their heavy weapons to Russia’s military. Prigozhin had said such moves were planned ahead of a July 1 deadline for his fighters to sign contracts — which he opposed — to serve under Russia’s military command. Russian authorities also said Tuesday they have closed a criminal investigation into the uprising and are pressing no armed rebellion charge against Prigozhin or his followers.
Putin set to sue Prigozhin affiliated organisation
Still, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to set the stage for financial wrongdoing charges against an affiliated organization Prigozhin owns. Putin told a military gathering that Prigozhin’s Concord Group earned $941 million from a contract to provide the military with food, and that Wagner had received over 86 billion rubles (over $1 billion) in the past year for wages and additional items.
“I hope that while doing so they didn’t steal anything, or stole not so much,” Putin said, adding that authorities would look closely at Concord’s contract.
For years, Prigozhin has enjoyed lucrative catering contracts with the Russian government. Police who searched his St. Petersburg office on Saturday said they found 4 billion rubles ($48 million) in trucks outside, according to media reports the Wagner boss confirmed. He said the money was intended to pay soldiers’ families.
Wagner halted the mutiny after negotiations
Prigozhin and his fighters stopped the revolt on Saturday, less than 24 hours after it began and shortly after Putin spoke on national TV, branding the rebellion leaders, whom he did not name, as traitors. The charge of mounting an armed mutiny could have been punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Prigozhin’s escape from prosecution, at least on an armed rebellion charge, is in stark contrast to Moscow’s treatment of its critics, including those staging anti-government protests in Russia, where many opposition figures have been punished with long sentences in notoriously harsh penal colonies.
Lukashenko said some of the Wagner fighters are now in the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine that Russia illegally annexed last September. The series of stunning events in recent days constitutes the gravest threat so far to Putin’s grip on power, occurring during the 16-month-old war in Ukraine, and he again acknowledged the threat Tuesday in saying the result could have been a civil war.
Putin thanked his soldiers for averting mutiny
In addresses this week, Putin has sought to project stability and demonstrate authority. In a Kremlin ceremony Tuesday, the president walked down the red-carpeted stairs of the 15th-century white-stone Palace of Facets to address soldiers and law enforcement officers, thanking them for their actions to avert the rebellion.
In a further show of business as usual, Russian media showed Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in his military uniform, greeting Cuba’s visiting defence minister in a pomp-heavy ceremony. Prigozhin has said his goal had been to oust Shoigu and other military brass, not stage a coup against Putin.
(With inputs from agency)
