The mercenary leader of the “Wagner” PMK, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is known for violent forays, during which he attacks the leaders of the Russian army, and the military mutiny, which began on Friday night and was suppressed the next day, caused real chaos in Russia, sanctifying the president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. .

The biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s more than two decades in power was extinguished within 24 hours after rebel leader Wagner ordered his troops to march on Moscow, only to halt 200km from their destination after agreeing with the Kremlin to go into exile in Belarus .

Belarusian President Oleksandr Lukashenko negotiated an agreement with the leader of the Wagner group, who agreed to de-escalate the situation in Russia, Reuters reports.

Thus, Yevhen Prigozhin agreed to stop the movement of mercenaries through Russia on the condition that the mercenaries’ safety was guaranteed.

The exact details of the deal have not been disclosed, but Russia has dropped the treason case against Prigozhin and he is to go into exile in Belarus, the Kremlin says.

The last images of Prigozhin were on Saturday evening, when he was leaving Rosov with his forces to the applause of local residents.

Prigozhin is silent

Since then, the press service of leader Wagner has not sent any messages. The disappearance looks suspicious given the fact that Prigozhin often reports on his actions and reacts to the reports of the Russian press, sometimes also international media, but in an ironic way.

Local authorities reported that things were normalizing in Rostov, where Prigozhin’s mercenaries captured the Russian military quarter without firing a single shot.

There is still no information about Prigozhin’s arrival in Belarus, as the press secretary of the Russian leader Dmytro Peskov announced about the agreement.

In a televised speech, Vladimir Putin vowed to punish those behind the internal turmoil under his former ally, calling the Wagner rebels “treason” and a “stab in the back.”

By allowing Prigozhin and his troops to leave Russia, Putin’s “highest goal” was to “avoid bloodshed and internal confrontation with unpredictable results,” Peskov said.

Problems for the Russian military in containing the insurgency?

The Institute for the Study of War believes that it was difficult for the Kremlin to properly respond to the mutiny, one of the reasons, most likely, being the heavy Russian losses in Ukraine.

According to ISW analysts, “Wagner” mercenaries could have reached the Moscow region if Prigozhin had given them an order to do so.

On Sunday morning, some restrictions were still in place on the route between Moscow and Rostov-on-Don, although traffic restrictions were gradually lifted elsewhere.

Currently, it is not known whether the agreement reached through the mediation of Belarus also solved the main problem that Prigozhin complained about: the removal from the leadership of the Russian Defense Department of Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, with whom the mercenary leader has been communicating recently. was in the war, the culmination of which was sub.

American intelligence knew that Prigozhin would rebel

American special services gathered information that Wagner’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was planning to act against Russia’s military leadership as early as mid-June, The Guardian reports, the American press reports.

However, US officials remained silent to avoid being accused of organizing a coup d’état.

Secret negotiations with the Kremlin

The Russian presidential administration has been trying to negotiate with Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin after he called for mutiny against the Russian high command, a Kremlin source cited by Important Stories and The Moscow Times said.

“The Kremlin tried to negotiate with Prigozhin yesterday. He received a call from the President’s Administration with a proposal to back down and explain all his messages with a cyber attack and forgery of his voice,” the source said.

The source stressed that the leader of the mercenaries was called by representatives of the Kremlin, and not by President Vladimir Putin.

Prigozhin did not agree to the Kremlin’s terms, and then the Russian president ordered criminal proceedings against him, the source added.