Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to allow powerful mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin to go free and leave for Belarus after a tense 24 hours that handed the Kremlin leader the biggest threat to his more than two-decade hold on power and sparked fears of a possible bloody civil war.
Prigozhin, whose troops had been the most effective fighters among Putin’s forces since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, had turned on the Russian military and led what was called an armed insurrection, ordering his forces – which he claimed numbered 25,000 – to advance toward Moscow before he halted his so-called “march for justice” on June 24.
In return, Wagner fighters who joined Prigozhin on his march would not be prosecuted, the Kremlin said. As part of the deal, Wagner fighters who did not take part in the march will come under the direct control of the Russian military — a move Prigozhin had vehemently resisted while leading his troops in the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine.
Belarus negotiates deal for Prigozhin
Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka helped mediate the deal, the Kremlin said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin and Lukashenka had guaranteed Prigozhin’s safety.
Hours later, Rostov region Governor Vasily Golubev said on Telegram that Wagner forces were pulling out of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don in convoys, accompanied by tanks and other vehicles, and were headed for their field camps. The mercenary fighters earlier had captured control of a military base in the city of 1.2 million people near the Ukraine border.
It was not immediately clear where they would be based or how many had participated in the march toward Moscow. They previously had been fighting in Ukraine, but Prigozhin had announced they were giving up their positions to the Russian military.
‘Betrayal’ and ‘treason’
Putin had vowed to punish those behind the armed uprising led by his onetime protege. In a televised speech to the nation, Putin called the rebellion a “betrayal” and “treason.”
Prigozhin claimed his fighters had reached within 200 kilometers of the capital without spilling any blood, a possible hint to the Kremlin of his support within elements of the nation’s security structures.
“We are turning our columns around and going back to the field camps according to our plan,” Prigozhin said in a short, fiery audio message posted to Telegram on June 24.
Although the insurrection appears to be over for now, it has left the authoritarian Russian leader weakened and vulnerable, experts say.
“The fact that Lukashenka moderated this strikes me as embarrassing in the extreme,” Sam Greene, a Russia expert at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said in a tweet. “This whole episode may have punctured the air of inevitability that has kept him aloft for the past 23 years.”
In a sign of the gravity of the situation earlier in the day, Putin was forced to address the nation, saying in televised remarks that he would do “everything to protect the country.” He also called the leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkey to inform them of the situation.
Global attention
The armed insurrection, unprecedented in post-Soviet Russia, put other nations on alert, with U.S. President Joe Biden contacting his counterparts in France, Germany, and Britain
Putin must now contend with the ramifications of the mutiny as Ukraine pushes ahead with its large-scale counter-offensive. This crucial endeavor could shape the course of the conflict, including further opening the spigot of lethal Western military aid.
“Today the world saw that the masters of Russia do not control anything. Nothing at all. Just complete chaos,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address late on June 24.
Prigozhin’s forces swept into Rostov-on-Don in Russia’s south in the early morning hours of June 24 where they easily seized key infrastructure, before moving north toward Moscow with little resistance, shocking the country and the world.
The Russian military reportedly fired on the Wagner forces at one point as they made their way along the highway toward Moscow, though RFE/RL could not confirm such an incident.
