Russia drops charges against paramilitary chief who staged uprising
The outlines of a deal that appeared to defuse a rapidly evolving Russian security crisis began to come into focus late Saturday, as the Kremlin announced a Russian mercenary leader, who for nearly 24 hours led an armed uprising against the country’s military leadership, would flee to Belarus and his fighters would escape repercussions.
The announcement capped one of the most tumultuous days in President Vladimir Putin’s more than 23-year rule in Russia and followed an apparent intervention by the leader of neighboring Belarus, who stepped in to negotiate a solution to the crisis directly with the head of the Wagner private military company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was leading the revolt.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that under an agreement brokered by Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, Prigozhin would go to Belarus and the criminal case opened against him for organizing an armed insurrection would be dropped.
The Wagner fighters who didn’t participate in the uprising would be given the option of signing Russian defense ministry contracts, Peskov said, and the rest would avoid prosecution, considering their “heroic deeds on the front.”
“There was a higher goal – to avoid bloodshed, to avoid an internal confrontation, to avoid clashes with unpredictable consequences,” Peskov said. “It was in the name of these goals that Lukashenko’s mediation efforts were realized, and President Putin made the corresponding decisions.”
In an audio statement earlier in the evening, Prigozhin announced that his troops marching toward Moscow would turn around. His forces, which had seized the Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, also appeared to be leaving in footage shared on social media.
In a brief address Saturday morning, Putin had called the mutiny an act of treason by people who were delivering “a stab in the back of our country and our people.”
Prigozhin, after lashing out Friday at the Russian military over its handling of the war in Ukraine, took control of Rostov in the early morning and began moving his armed military convoys toward the Russian capital. Putin, in turn, scrambled security forces in southwestern Russia and Moscow.
The situation shifted quickly late Saturday when Lukashenko’s office, in a statement, said that Prigozhin had agreed to the Belarusian leader’s proposal “to stop the movement of armed persons of the Wagner company.” In an audio statement posted to Telegram shortly afterward, Prigozhin said he was “turning around” to avoid Russian bloodshed and “leaving in the opposite direction to field camps in accordance with the plan.”
Peskov said that Lukashenko, who had long been personally acquainted with Prigozhin, proposed serving as a mediator – and Putin agreed. “We are grateful to the president for his efforts,” Peskov said.
Here is the latest:
– Prigozhin’s long-running criticism of Moscow’s military leadership erupted into open confrontation Friday when he accused the Russian army of attacking his forces and pledged to retaliate. Russian authorities said they were charging the mercurial Wagner leader with “organizing an armed rebellion.” In an audio message Saturday, Prigozhin (pronounced pree-GOH-shin) rejected accusations of treason and said that his forces were “patriots of our motherland.”
- Kremlin apparatchiks, regional governors, lawmakers and other officials declared their fealty to Putin, with virtually all predicting that he would prevail. No central figures publicly took Prigozhin’s side.
- U.S. officials said they were watching the situation closely but did not want to say anything publicly that could give Putin reason to blame the West for the turmoil.
- Asked whether the uprising would result in changes to the Russian military leadership, as Prigozhin had demanded, Peskov said those decisions were exclusively the domain of Russia’s commander-in-chief, so “such matters could scarcely be discussed” in such talks. Peskov also said Russia’s military operations in Ukraine would continue unchanged.
- In eastern Ukraine, residents saw the rebellion as a distraction for Russia that could help Kyiv’s forces. Russia continued its attacks on Ukraine, firing more than 20 missiles at Kyiv in a predawn assault that left at least three people dead, the eighth attack on the Ukrainian capital this month.
- The Russian ruble slid to its weakest level against the dollar in more than a year Friday, before the trading markets closed, and at least one currency exchange service halted ruble transfers because of uncertainty about the price of the currency.
- This article originally appeared in