Yevgeny Prigozhin's Exile: The End of a Short-Lived Mutiny in Russia

 Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner Group, a private army of prison recruits and other mercenaries, escaped prosecution for his abortive armed rebellion against the Kremlin and arrived Tuesday in Belarus as part of a deal that ended the short-lived mutiny in Russia. The 62-year-old's exile was part of a deal that also saw the Kremlin close a criminal investigation into the rebel forces and allowed Prigozhin's troops to hand over their heavy weapons to Russia's military. In response to the rebels, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to set the stage for financial wrongdoing charges against an affiliated organization Prigozhin owns. Putin told a military gathering that Prigozhin's Concord Group earned 80 billion rubles ($941 million) from a contract to provide the military with food, and that Wagner had received over 86 billion rubles (over $1 billion) in the past year for wages and additional items. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko confirmed Prigozhin was in Belarus, and said he and some of his troops were welcome to stay “for some time” at their own expense. Lukashenko said some of the Wagner fighters are now in the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine that Russia illegally annexed last September.

Also in response to the mutiny, Putin expressed his gratitude to soldiers and law enforcement officers who averted the rebellion. He also honored the airmen who died while confronting the rebellion, saying they “didn't waver and fulfilled the orders and their military duty with dignity.” Russian authorities have also said they are pressing no armed rebellion charge against Prigozhin or his followers. Prigozhin had voiced regret for the deaths in his statement Monday, but said Wagner troops fired because the aircraft were bombing them. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov would not disclose details about the Kremlin’s deal with Prigozhin, saying only that Putin had provided “certain guarantees” aimed at avoiding a “worst-case scenario.”

Putin has offered Prigozhin’s fighters the choice of either coming under Russian military command, leaving service or going to Belarus. But exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya warned that Wagner troops will threaten the country and its neighbors. She said, “Belarusians don’t welcome war criminal Prigozhin. If Wagner sets up military bases on our territory, it will pose a new threat to our sovereignty and our neighbors.” The series of stunning events in recent days constitutes the gravest threat so far to Putin’s grip on power, occurring during the 16-month-old war in Ukraine. In a further show of business-as-usual, the Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu greeted Cuba’s visiting defense minister in a pomp-heavy ceremony, while the National Guard chief Viktor Zolotov said the National Guard lacks battle tanks and other heavy weapons and now would get them. The resolution of this rebellion is yet to be seen, but the threat of a civil war and the risk of militarized forces to the sovereignty of Belarus and its neighbors is a serious one. Prigozhin's exile may be the end of a short-lived mutiny in Russia, but the consequences of this uprising remain to be seen.