The Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has returned to Russia, the Belarusian president has said, despite a peace deal with the Kremlin under which Prigozhin had agreed to move to Belarus.
“As for Prigozhin, he’s in St Petersburg. He is not on the territory of Belarus,” Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday. “Where is Prigozhin this morning? Maybe he left for Moscow.”
Lukashenko said Wagner fighters were stationed at their camps in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, adding that his offer to host them in Belarus remained.
Under a deal brokered by Lukashenko, Prigozhin abandoned what he called a “march for justice” by thousands of his recruits on Moscow in exchange for safe passage to exile in Belarus. Criminal charges against Prigozhin were dropped last week as part of the agreement.
Lukashenko said Vladimir Putin would not “wipe out” Prigozhin because the Russian president was not “malevolent and vindictive”, suggesting that the mercenary head was safe from the Kremlin’s security services.
The Belarusian dictator added that he planned to discuss the future of Wagner during an forthcoming meeting with Putin. “Will Wagner end up in Belarus or not, and in what quantity – we’ll figure this out in the near future,” Lukashenko said.
Prigozhin, 62, a former convict who rose to become Russia’s most powerful mercenary, was last seen in public on 24 June when he left Rostov-on-Don, a city in southern Russia that his troops had occupied briefly.
There have been questions about whether Prigozhin was sticking to the terms of the deal. The warlord has not been photographed in Belarus, and Prigozhin’s jet has flown between Belarus and Moscow and St Petersburg several times, causing speculation about his whereabouts.
Responding to Lukashenko’s comments, Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the Kremlin did not follow Prigozhin’s movements. “We do not have the desire nor the capability to do so,” the spokesperson told journalists during his daily call. Peskov added that the brokered deal under which Prigozhin relocated to Belarus “remains relevant”.
Prigozhin, speaking on the Telegram messaging app on Monday for the second time since his aborted rebellion, thanked supporters inside Russia. “Today we need your support more than ever,” he said, promising new victories at the front “in the near future”.
The fact that Prigozhin appears to move freely around Russia indicates that he continues to enjoy some leverage in the country, said a former senior Russian defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It does not look like Prigozhin fears for his life. He does not act like a man on the run,” the former official said.
Russian state media on Wednesday launched a fierce attack on Prigozhin as part of the Kremlin’s efforts to discredit him in the eyes of the Russian public. Moscow has begun to dismantle Prigozhin’s corporate empire, closing down some of his media assets.
Rossiya-1 TV channel aired what it said was exclusive footage shot during an FSB security service raid on Prigozhin’s private estates in St Petersburg. The FSB said it found weapons, gold bars and a closet full of wigs at the opulent mansion.
Several Russian Telegram channels close to the security services aired images purporting to show Prigozhin wearing wigs and a series of disguises.
The pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia also published footage of the raid, showing a giant sledgehammer inscribed with the words “for use in important negotiations” displayed in one of the rooms.
According to two independent opinion polls, Prigozhin’s aborted rebellion sharply dented his domestic support. Still, despite Kremlin’s efforts to discredit him, one poll showed that nearly 30% of Russians continue to view him in a positive light.
The Kremlin has cracked down on Wagner sympathisers in the Russian army after the militia’s failure, reportedly detaining a senior Russian general, Sergei Surovikin.
Surovikin, 56, a veteran military officer nicknamed General Armageddon for his ruthless tactics, has not been seen since the short-lived rebellion ended. According to several media reports, Surovikin was being interrogated at an undisclosed location over his links to Prigozhin.
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