By Guy Faulconbridge and Gleb Stolyarov
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin flew to Belarus from Russia on Tuesday after a mutiny that has dealt the biggest blow to President Vladimir Putin’s authority since he came to power more than 23 years ago.
Putin initially vowed to crush the mutiny, comparing it to the war-time turmoil that ushered in the revolution of 1917 and then a civil war, but hours later a deal was clinched to allow Prigozhin and some of his fighters to go to Belarus.
Prigozhin, a 62-year-old former petty thief who rose to become Russia’s most powerful mercenary, was last seen in public when he left the southern Russian city of Rostov on Saturday, shaking hands and quipping that he had “cheered up” people.
Flightradar24 showed an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet appeared in Rostov region at 0232 GMT and began a descent at 0420 GMT near Minsk.
The identification codes of the aircraft matched those of a jet linked by the United States to Autolex Transport, which is linked to Prigozhin by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control that enforces sanctions.
“I see Prigozhin is already flying in on this plane,” President Alexander Lukashenko was quoted as saying by state news agency BELTA. “Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today.”
Under a deal mediated by Lukashenko on Saturday to halt a mutiny by Prigozhin’s mercenary fighters, Prigozhin was meant to move to Belarus.
In an address to the nation late on Monday, Putin said the leaders of what he called the “armed mutiny” had betrayed Russia and the Russian people but thanked the army, law enforcement and special services for resisting the mutineers.
The 70-year-old Kremlin chief paid tribute to pilots killed during the mutiny and said he had ordered Russian forces to avoid further bloodshed, thanking those mercenaries in Wagner who stepped back from the brink of “armed rebellion” and bloodshed on Saturday.
Prigozhin’s “march for justice”, which he said was aimed at settling scores with Putin’s military top brass whom he cast as treasonous and corrupt, has raised the prospect of turmoil in Russia while undermining Putin’s reputation as unchallenged leader.
WAGNER’S FUTURE
Just hours after casting the mutineers as traitors on Saturday, Putin agreed to a deal to drop criminal charges against them in exchange for their return to camps, with Prigozhin and some of his fighters to move to Belarus.
It is not yet clear whether Wagner – created to fight proxy wars for the Kremlin in a deniable form – will survive the mutiny, and if it does, what it might do next.
Prigozhin, who has bragged about meddling in U.S. elections, said last week his fighting force was 25,000 strong.
With strong ties to Russian military intelligence (GRU), Wagner has been able to recruit some of Russia’s best special forces soldiers with significant cash salaries and generous payouts for families of fallen soldiers.
One option, if Wagner survives, would be for it to return to Africa – where it has gained a fearsome reputation especially in Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali – or to attack Ukraine from the north, opening up a new Russian front.
Speaking from the Kremlin on Monday, Putin vowed to stand by his promise to allow Wagner fighters to leave for Belarus, though he did not mention Prigozhin by name.
“You have the opportunity to continue serving Russia by signing a contract with the ministry of defence or other law enforcement agencies, or to return to your family and friends,” Putin said.
Putin was shown on state television holding a late-night meeting with top security and military officials, including Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, the focus of Prigozhin’s wrath.
Shoigu stood with soldiers on Tuesday on Cathedral Square in the Kremlin as Putin addressed them and again praised their loyalty and courage in standing in opposition to the mutiny.
Prigozhin said on Monday that the mutiny had been intended not to overthrow Russia’s government but to register a protest over what he said was its ineffectual conduct of the war in Ukraine.
“We did not have the goal of overthrowing the existing regime and the legally elected government,” he said in an 11-minute audio message released on the Telegram messaging app.
The Federal Security Service said it had dropped a criminal case against Prigozhin for armed mutiny while the defence ministry said Wagner group was preparing to hand over its heavy military equipment to the army.
(Reporting by Gleb Stolaryov and Guy Faulconbridge, Editing by Angus MacSwan, Jon Boyle and Alex Richardson)
