The forces of the Wagner paramilitary group began to leave their positions in Russia on the orders of their leader, Evgeni Prigozhin, who turned back after directly defying the authority of Russian President Vladimir Putin, reports Agerpres, citing AFP.
The Kremlin said that after a day of spectacular armed rebellion, Prigozhin is to leave for Belarus, and the charges against him will be dropped. On Sunday, It was unclear where the stormy boss of Wagner, who had promised a day earlier to “liberate the Russian people” by sending his troops to Moscow, eventually backed down to avoid spilling “Russian blood”.
“It was in our interest to avoid a bloodbath,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, hailing “a solution without further losses” to the crisis, in which Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko is playing the role of mediator. According to the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mihailo Podoliak,
There will inevitably be consequences.
Analysts predict that this extraordinary and short-lived crisis will not be without consequences for Wagner and his leader.
“There must be. Otherwise, the message is that a military force can openly challenge the state, and others must understand that the Russian state has a monopoly on domestic violence,” wrote Samuel Bendett, a researcher at the Center on Twitter for Naval Analysis.
“Putin and the security services will likely try to weaken Wagner or remove Prigozhin,” Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the US Institute for Foreign Policy Research, wrote on Twitter. According to him, “the most important effects will be felt in the Middle East and Africa, where Wagner is very present.”
On Saturday, Wagner’s troops approached 400 km from the capital after occupying the headquarters of the Russian army in Rostov (southwest) during the morning, the sensitive center of operations in Ukraine.
After being cheered by dozens of residents who shouted “Wagner, Wagner!”, these fighters, with their leader at the head of the convoy, finally left the scene, the region’s governor said overnight. “The column of the Wagner group left Rostov and headed for its camps,” said Vassili Golubev on Telegram.
Moscow pardons its criminals who rebelled against Putin’s rule.
According to the Kremlin, none of the fighters from the Wagner group, which plays a key role alongside the Russian military in Ukraine, will be prosecuted for the coup. “No one will persecute them (the fighters), given their merits on the Ukrainian front,” Dmitri Peskov assured.
While the terms of the deal with Wagner remain subject to speculation, President Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, appears to have played a key role. According to his services, he proposed to the leader Wagner to stop his advance in Russia. Western governments closely watched the events. According to the Washington Post and New York Times publications, the American intelligence services warned the White House about the imminence of a Wagner revolt in Russia a day before it broke out.
“We are grateful to the President of Belarus for these efforts,” the Kremlin spokesman said.
Faced with the biggest challenge since he came to power in late 1999, President Putin has tried to keep a strong hand in the face of this unprecedented rebellion, denouncing a “betrayal” and evoking the specter of a “civil war.”
At the same time, the Kremlin warned Western countries against any attempt to “take advantage of the internal situation in Russia to achieve their Russophobic goals.” Wagner’s failed rebellion will not “in any way” affect the Russian offensive in Ukraine, his spokesman said during the evening.
Some extraordinary security measures taken in Russia in response to the Wagner advance have begun to be lifted, particularly in the Lipetsk region, south of Moscow, where paramilitaries have infiltrated.
The mayor of Moscow asked residents to limit trips to the city, calling the situation “difficult”, and declared a day off for Monday.
Now there seems to be a relative relaxation between Putin and leader Wagner after a Saturday day punctuated by the two’s virulent statements.
Putin’s regime is increasingly shaky.
On Saturday morning, in a speech addressed to the nation, Vladimir Putin, in a black suit, with a serious air and a martial tone, attacked without naming the man who dared to defy him, accusing them of being “traitors ” and promising to “punish” them.
“It is a stab in the back of our country and our people,” Putin said. “We are facing nothing but a betrayal. A betrayal caused by the excessive ambitions and personal interests” of Prigozhin, the Kremlin leader added.
Vladimir Putin is “deeply mistaken,” and my fighters will not “surrender”, replied the chief Wagner, who has been criticizing the Russian military strategy in Ukraine for several months. “We are patriots. No one will surrender at the request of the president, the security services or anyone else,” he promised, directly attacking the Russian president for the first time.
In several audio messages on Friday, Chief Wagner claimed that the Russian strikes had caused a “very large number of casualties” in his ranks and accused Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of being responsible.
These accusations “do not correspond to reality and are a provocation”, replied the Ministry of Defense.
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