Vladimir Putin has appeared outside at the Kremlin to tell members of Russia’s security services that they “essentially prevented a civil war” during Yevgeny Prigozhin’s armed mutiny, as a jet linked to the Wagner leader flew to Belarus from Russia.
“The people and the army were not on the side of the mutineers,” the Russian president told the assembled heads of Russia’s main domestic security services and the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, whom Prigozhin had sought to oust with his uprising, in the Kremlin’s Cathedral Square.
Putin then announced a minute’s silence for the army pilots that Wagner had shot down and killed during the uprising. There has been no official information about how many pilots died or how many aircraft were shot down but some pro-military bloggers reported that at least 13 pilots were killed during the mutiny.
Shortly after Putin’s comments, Viktor Zolotov, a secretive former bodyguard to Putin who now heads Rosgvardiya, Russia’s internal military force, claimed that the rebellion was “inspired by the west”.
“Western intelligence agencies were working – the rebellion was inspired by the west and superimposed on Prigozhin’s ambitions,” Zolotov said, without providing evidence.
He added that Rosgvardiya, a force used to suppress internal dissent, would be equipped with heavy weapons and tanks following Prigozhin’s rebellion. “The issue was discussed with the president,” Zolotov said.
Earlier in the day, Russia’s FSB security service dropped a criminal investigation into Prigozhin over his armed mutiny. The Kremlin had earlier promised to drop charges against Prigozhin as part of a deal negotiated by the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, under which the Wagner leader is meant to move to Belarus.
In a defiant 11-minute statement on Monday, Prigozhin defended the Wagner uprising and denied that he had sought to topple Putin. He made no mention of his whereabouts but flight data showed that a Russian-registered Embraer Legacy 600 jet, which is linked to Prigozhin in US sanctions documents, flew to Belarus from Russia on Tuesday morning.
The flight tracking website Flightradar24 showed the jet descending to landing altitude near the Belarusian capital, Minsk. It first appeared on the tracking site above Rostov, the southern Russian city Prigozhin’s fighters captured on Saturday.
Putin said in an unscheduled address to the nation on Monday evening that the Wagner group would be shut down and the group’s fighters had the choice to sign a contract with the ministry of defence or relocate to Belarus.
The Kremlin previously said it would guarantee Prigozhin’s safe passage to Belarus, and Putin’s remarks indicated that other Wagner fighters could follow him there. Prigozhin himself said Lukashenko had agreed to let the group operate there.
Putin’s recent series of public statements indicates that the Russian leader is eager to project a sense of unity, following the biggest crisis in his 23 years in power, said Sam Greene, the director of the Russia Institute at King’s College London.
“Putin is hoping – through a series of set-piece events, like last night’s security meeting and today’s address on Cathedral Square – to rewrite the narrative of Prigozhin’s putsch as one of consolidation and consensus,” Greene said in a tweet
“The greatest threat to Putin at this point comes not from Prigozhin, but from the potential that these events break the hermetic seal on the public consensus that there is no alternative to Putin.”
Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday that Wagner was preparing to hand over heavy military equipment to the regular army. The defence ministry’s statement suggests the military leadership is swiftly moving ahead with the dissolution of Wagner, whose troops are believed to have returned to their bases in the Russian-occupied area of eastern Ukraine.
On Monday night, the Kremlin released a video showing the Russian president meeting the head of the FSB and Shoigu. The defence minister’s continued presence suggests he still enjoys the support of Putin.
Shoigu previously had ordered all volunteer detachments to sign contracts with his ministry by the end of the month, a step seen as an attempt to rein in Prigozhin by integrating Wagner into the army.
In his audio message on Monday, Prigozhin said his troops would resist being subsumed under the Russian defence ministry, would not sign contracts, and that Wagner could even be allowed to continue its operations in Belarus.
