The chief of the Wagner private army that staged an aborted rebellion against the Kremlin’s military leadership last month is back in Russia, according to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Yevgeny Prigozhin “is in St. Petersburg,” Lukashenko told reporters in Minsk on Thursday, according to the state-owned Belta news agency. The mercenary leader may also have gone to Moscow, the president said.
Lukashenko said last week that Prigozhin was in Belarus days after he agreed to turn his mercenaries away from a march on Moscow June 24 that had spiraled into the greatest threat to President Vladimir Putin’s nearly quarter-century rule in Russia. The Wagner founder hasn’t made a public appearance since the revolt ended.
The Kremlin isn’t following Prigozhin’s movements and has no wish to do so, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday, the Interfax news service reported.
Under a deal brokered by Lukashenko, Putin agreed to allow Prigozhin to go to Belarus as well as any Wagner fighters who wanted to join him, and to drop a criminal investigation against them for armed mutiny. The apparent ease with which Prigozhin is able to travel in and out of Russia raises questions about the terms of the agreement with Putin.
While Russia’s Federal Security Service said it had closed the case in line with the deal, Putin last week disclosed that the state paid some $3.25 billion in the past year to Wagner and Prigozhin’s catering company that supplied food to the military. “I hope that no one stole anything,” Putin said. “We will of course look into all this.”
Lukashenko said Wagner mercenaries may be allowed to deploy in Belarus as long as they help to defend the state.
“The main condition is: if we need to engage this unit to defend the state, it will be engaged immediately,” Lukashenko said.
Even as Lukashenko said Prigozhin’s forces haven’t moved to Belarus yet, the Belarusian Hajun monitoring group said it had received information that some 200 Wagner fighters were taking part in firearms drills at a training ground in the Vitebsk region about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the border with Russia. The information hasn’t been fully verified, the group said.
Lukashenko, who depends on Putin for economic and political support, allowed Russia to invade Ukraine from Belarus and has consistently backed the Kremlin leader’s war on the neighboring country.
He said he saw no risk that Wagner may organize an uprising in Belarus and turn weapons against his regime even as he underlined the importance of taking measures to prevent any such action.
“In life anything can happen,” Lukashenko said.
