Wagner chief calls off march on Moscow

Yevgeny Prigozhin, who turned his Wagner force against the military leadership in Moscow, has left for Belarus and a criminal case against him will be dropped, the Kremlin says.

People look at a tank near a circus building in the city of Rostov-on-Don. Picture: AFP

Yevgeny Prigozhin, who turned his Wagner force against the military leadership in Moscow, will leave for Belarus and a criminal case against him will be dropped, the Kremlin says.

“Avoiding bloodshed, internal confrontation, and clashes with unpredictable results was the highest goal,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Under the agreement, brokered by Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko, Wagner fighters will not be prosecuted, Peskov added.

“We have always respected their heroic deeds at the front.”

“An agreement has been reached that Wagner would return to its bases,” Peskov said, adding that those fighters who had not participated in the rebellion would be allowed to formally join the Russian army.

Earlier, Prigozhin reversed his extraordinary coup attempt on Moscow and ordered his men to head back to Ukraine to avoid shedding Russian blood.

High tensions appear to dissipated, although the strongman leadership of Russian president Vladimir Putin has been seriously weakened in an extraordinary day of mutiny.

While significant troops on the ground in Russia ’s south backed the Wagner Group’s “March of Justice”, the top Russian elite, including some politicians fled the capital.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin speaking inside the headquarters of the Russian southern military district in the city of Rostov-on-Don. Picture: AFP

Crucially, Putin enlisted support from Chechen rebels and Belarus to convince the Wagner Group to back down.

On the verge of dramatic civil war showdown outside the capital after progressing 1000km from Rostov on Don – and shooting down a reported seven Russian military aircraft – Prigozhin said he was making a point.

“They wanted to disband PMC Wagner. We set out on June 23 for the March of Justice. In a day, we walked to nearly 200km away from Moscow,’’ he said early Sunday morning Australian time.

“In this time, we did not spill a single drop of blood of our fighters. Now, the moment has come when blood may spill. That’s why, understanding the responsibility for spilling Russian blood on one of the sides, we are turning back our convoys and going back to field camps according to the plan.”

Members of Wagner group stand on the balcony of the circus building in the city of Rostov-on-Don. Picture: AFP

Prigozhin’s about face appears to have been brokered in a deal with the Kremlin via Belarus hours after threatening that Russia needed a new president and just at the point that Moscow may have fallen.

For the military defence of Moscow was haphazard, and the city was relying heavily on local police. However now that Prigozhin has given Putin valuable time, any of his advantages, such as speed, and quick decision making, will be negated.It is unclear if Prigozhin’s main concerns about the inept military leadership of defence minister Sergei Shoigu and the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov, will result in any reshuffle of military command.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he had negotiated a deal with Prigozhin after talking with Putin.

Lukashenko’s office said Prigozhin accepted the offer to de-escalate the tensions and the deal included security guarantees for Wagner troops.

“Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin accepted a proposal to stop the movement of armed persons of the Wagner company on the territory of Russia and take further steps to de-escalate tensions,” the Belarus president’s office said.

“Negotiations continued throughout the day. As a result, they came to agreements on the inadmissibility of unleashing a bloody massacre on the territory of Russia”.

The involvement of Lukashenko, Putin’s closest ally, came after the seismic power shifts in Russia threatened to spill over into Belarus.

Svitlana Tikhanovskaya, the opposition leader who challenged Lukashenko in 2020 presidential elections, said the Wagner’s rebellion is the best chance to kick the Russian military out from Belarus.

“If we miss this chance,” she said, “Russia will do to us exactly what they did to Ukraine.”

There are no details (so far) as to what the deal entails, and whether Shoigu or Gerasimov will remain in post.