Mercenary boss returned to Russia to collect money and guns
But on Thursday, 12 days after Prigozhin abruptly turned around columns of fighters that he had sent rolling toward Moscow, Lukashenko said the mercenary boss had been back in his home city of St. Petersburg and may have flown to Moscow on Thursday morning. Lukashenko said a final deal on the move by Prigozhin and his fighters to Belarus was still not settled.
Prigozhin’s continued presence in Russia was confirmed by a St. Petersburg businessman, who said the Wagner boss had returned home to reclaim money and weapons seized by the Russian security services.
“It’s not the end of Prigozhin,” the businessman said, speaking Wednesday on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “They returned all his money to him. More than this, today they even gave back to him his honorary pistol, the Glock, and another weapon. He came to take it himself.”
Prigozhin, however, could still be vulnerable to new criminal cases if Putin fears he looks weak amid a barrage of criticism in Russia for dropping the insurgency charges. Putin, while refusing to say Prigozhin’s name, has publicly raised a question of financial crimes in connection with numerous contracts that Prigozhin’s businesses had with the government.
The president said last week that authorities would carefully investigate the $2 billion paid to Wagner and Prigozhin’s Concord group, and a reporter for the state-controlled Channel One television channel declared Wednesday that the investigation was ongoing.
But Prigozhin still appears to have sufficient leverage in Russia, after Wagner earned a reputation as arguably Russia’s most effective assault force in Ukraine. That stature, and his many connections in high places, seemed to at least partly explain why he was allowed to walk around St. Petersburg and potentially Moscow, apparently with no fear of arrest, even after he was called a traitor and supposedly exiled.
Officials in Moscow appear to be wrestling with the difficult question of how Wagner can be replaced, both in Ukraine and in its operations in Africa, where it has extended Russia’s reach through its security contracts with several governments.
Even top Russian officials were in the dark about the deal, what it means for Russia, for Putin’s authority, Prigozhin’s fate, and Wagner’s future.
“We still don’t know exactly what happened,” one member of top Russian diplomatic circles said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. This person said the crisis appeared to have passed and Moscow was “calm,” adding: “If we see this situation as a crisis, at least the most immediate consequences have been minimized. We see there are no clear consequences noticeable so far.”
In sign of how deeply the crisis disrupted lines of military authority in Russia, he said questions about Wagner’s future relations with the Ministry of Defense “remain open.”
Lukashenko, speaking at a news conference Thursday, said Prigozhin was “a free man,” but that he did not know what might happen later. He said that the deal allowing Prigozhin and Wagner to relocate to Belarus in return for calling off their June 24 rebellion was “being observed” but that details had not been fully resolved.
At the same time, Lukashenko hinted that Putin could overturn the deal, the Belarusian state news agency BelTA reported, adding that Wagner’s relocation to Belarus “will depend on what decision the leadership of Wagner and Russia make.”
The Belarusian leader said he had been in phone contact with Prigozhin “more than once,” including on Wednesday afternoon to discuss Wagner’s “further actions,”
“He told me one thing: ‘We will work in the name of Russia, for the good of Russia, and we will fulfill our duty to the end, as we have agreed and as decided by the relevant authorities,’” Lukashenko said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov deflected questions about Prigozhin’s whereabouts. “We don’t follow his movements,” Peskov said. “We have neither the ability nor the desire to do so.”
In a sign of Prigozhin’s potential vulnerability, pro-Kremlin media mounted an apparently coordinated campaign to discredit him, including the release of video and photographs of his luxury home, showing bundles of cash, weapons, fake passports, and wigs used for disguises.
News channels broadcast video of his home with guns, gold, an indoor pool, personal helicopter, and a corner with a Wagner flag and a mannequin dressed in a black suit and draped in more than a dozen military awards, including Russia’s highest honor, the Hero of Russia medal awarded in June last year.
Grey Zone, a Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel, and other Wagner channels aired images purporting to show Prigozhin wearing wigs and a series of disguises.
Lukashenko said that Belarus had offered Wagner the use of any one of dozens of former military bases but that “they have a different vision,” without spelling out what that was. He said Wagner fighters were currently at their permanent bases, without indicating where those are located, although Wagner is known to have bases in southern Russia and Ukraine.
The questions about Prigozhin’s location and the continued negotiations over the deal follow widespread dismay in the mainstream pro-Kremlin press about the agreement that saw Prigozhin go free.
During their short-lived rebellion, Prigozhin and his fighters shot down seven Russian aircraft, and the Wagner convoy got within 125 miles of Moscow in a bid to topple Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the chief of the Russian general staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov.
On Tuesday, Prigozhin managed to recover some of the items seized from his home and office by Russian Interior Ministry special operations police, including 10 billion rubles — about $110 million — in cash and his personal weapons, including a Glock pistol awarded to him by Shoigu, according to Fontanka, a St. Petersburg media outlet.
Since the June 24 rebellion, Kremlin propagandists have worked to portray Putin as a wise leader who averted a civil war in just one day. But the deal to drop insurgency charges against his former close ally roiled members of Russia’s elite, who were disturbed at the blatant violation of the rule of law in Russia — even though Putin has long used the legal system to punish enemies and keep elites in line.
News that the mercenary leader was back in Russia and had recovered guns and cash only deepened the sense of disquiet.
Lukashenko said Putin’s relations with Prigozhin went back decades and were “maybe even more than kind.”
Wagner, he added, was “a very powerful fighting unit, and there is hardly a unit in the world equal to the Wagner PMC.” Lukashenko claimed Wagner would not be used to attack Ukraine from Belarus, but could act in the defense of his country.
Lukashenko said on June 27 that Prigozhin had arrived in Belarus, but no images of his presence there emerged. Flight tracking data from Flightradar24 reported that two jets associated with Prigozhin arrived in Belarus that morning, one from southern Russia and one from St. Petersburg. A group that tracks military and flight movements in Belarus, the Belarusian Hajun Project, reported that the two Prigozhin jets flew to St. Petersburg later that day.
Prigozhin’s jet was tracked flying to Moscow from St. Petersburg early Thursday, the Reuters news agency reported. But there was no confirmation that he was on board.
