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Evgeny Prigozhin has been in shadow since the failed rebellion against the Russian military leader.
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He has not been seen in public since being spotted in St. Petersburg on July 4.
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The Kremlin announced that Prigozhin and Putin had met on June 29 and that Prigozhin pledged allegiance to the Russian leader.
Evgeny Prigozhin, the outspoken leader of the Wagner mercenary group that led an uprising against Russian leaders last month, has largely disappeared from public view as the Kremlin seeks to limit the damage from his armed rebellion.
On Monday, the Kremlin announced that a rebel leader whom Russian President Vladimir Putin had discussed assassinating had met with Putin five days after the failed rebellion. This is a timeline of Prigogine’s reported whereabouts.
June 24th: Prigozhin publicly called off troops marching towards Moscow as part of an armed uprising against Russian military officials.
June 26th: Prigozhin posted an audio message stating that “the purpose of the march was to prevent the destruction of Chancellor Wagner and to bring to justice the vast number of people who have erred by unprofessional conduct during special military operations.” military action. Invasion of Ukraine.
June 27th: A private jet linked to Prigogine has landed in Belarus. The Wagner leader was to be exiled to Belarus under the terms of a deal brokered by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to end the rebellion.
June 29th: According to the Kremlin, Mr. Prigozhin has met directly with Putin, raising questions about whether Mr. Prigozhin went to Belarus in the first place. No photos or videos of Putin’s meeting with Prigozhin have been released. The Kremlin claims that Mr. Prigozhin swore allegiance to the Russian leader during the meeting, but the meeting did not reveal that Putin did not mention Mr. Prigozhin by name, and that the “organizers of the rebellion” were the “motherland” and the “people.” It took place days after he said he had betrayed .
July 3: Prigogine released his final voice message, stating that the so-called “March of Justice” is “aimed at fighting traitors and mobilizing society. I am confident that in the near future we will see our next victory on the front lines.” I have,” he said. Thanks guys! “
July 4th: According to the independent Russian news agency Fontanka, Mr. Prigozhin was seen arriving at the FSB State Security building in his hometown of St. Petersburg, where he was given back some of his weapons.
July 6th: Prigogine may have flown to Moscow sometime between July 4th and July 6th. A jet linked to Prigogine flew from Moscow to St. Petersburg on July 6, according to Flightradar24. Lukashenko confirmed Wagner was back in St. Petersburg that day. He added that a final agreement on the terms of Prigozin’s asylum has not yet been finalized.
According to Belarusian officials and Russian media reports, Prigozhin is still in Russia, but Wagner’s bosses have been in shadow since the failed uprising. He has not posted an audio message since July 3, and his social media accounts have not responded to questions from the press. The Russian commander-in-chief, who is said to have had prior knowledge of Prigozhin’s attempted coup, was taken in for questioning and his whereabouts remain unknown.
Putin faces a unique challenge involving Prigozhin. Russia’s leader, long accused of ordering the imprisonment and assassination of those deemed unfaithful, shocked former U.S. intelligence officials by allowing Prigozhin to stay in Russia.
As Russia continues to lose the Ukraine war, “the first thing that comes to mind is that this is a sign of Putin’s weakness,” Glenn Karl, a former CIA spy in Russia, told an insider last week. This shows that “there are different factions that Putin has to appease” and that Prigozhin “has followers in a power structure that Putin cannot cross.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
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