Prigozhin's great escape or Putin's display of power?

Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of the private army of inmate recruits and other mercenaries that has fought some of the deadliest battles in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is in Belarus after his abortive armed rebellion against the Kremlin, Belarus’s president said Tuesday.

The exile to Belarus of the owner of the Wagner Group was part of the deal that ended the short-lived mutiny in Russia. He and some of his troops would be welcome to stay “for some time” at their own expense, President Alexander Lukashenko said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said preparations are underway for Wagner to hand over its heavy weapons to the Russian military. Mr. Prigozhin had said his troops were preparing to turn over their weapons ahead of a July 1 deadline for them to sign contracts to serve under the Russian military’s command.

Russian authorities also said Tuesday they have closed a criminal investigation into the aborted armed rebellion led by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and are pressing no charges against him or his troops.

The Federal Security Service, or FSB, said its investigation found that those involved in the mutiny, which lasted less than 24 hours after Mr. Prigozhin declared it Friday, “ceased activities directed at committing the crime,” so the case would not be pursued.

Still, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to set the stage for charges of financial wrongdoing against an affiliated organization owned by Mr. Prigozhin. He told a military gathering that Mr. 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.

“I hope that while doing so they didn’t steal anything or stole not so much,” Mr. Putin said, adding that authorities would look closely at Concord’s contract.

For years, Mr. Prigozhin has had lucrative catering contracts with the Russian government. Police who searched his St. Petersburg office over the weekend said they found 4 billion rubles ($48 million) in trucks outside, according to media reports confirmed by the Wagner boss. He said the money was intended to pay soldiers’ families.

Over the weekend, the Kremlin pledged not to prosecute Mr. Prigozhin and his fighters after he stopped the revolt on Saturday, even though Mr. Putin had branded them as traitors and authorities rushed to fortify Moscow’s defenses as the mutineers approached the capital.

The charge of mounting an armed mutiny is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Mr. Prigozhin escaping prosecution poses a stark contrast to how the Kremlin has treated those staging anti-government protests in Russia, where many opposition figures have gotten long sentences in notoriously harsh penal colonies.

Mr. Prigozhin’s specific whereabouts were not known on Tuesday.

President Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron hand for 29 years while relying on Russian subsidies and support, portrayed the uprising as the latest development in a clash between Mr. Prigozhin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Their long-simmering personal feud has at times boiled over, and Mr. Prigozhin has said the revolt aimed to unseat Mr. Shoigu, not Mr. Putin.

Mr. Lukashenko said he put Belarus’ armed forces on a combat footing as the mutiny unfolded. He said he had urged Mr. Putin not to be hasty in his response, adding that a conflict with Wagner could have spiraled out of control.

Like Mr. Putin, Mr. Lukashenko portrayed the Ukraine war as an existential threat, saying: “If Russia collapses, we all will perish under the debris.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov would not disclose any details about the Kremlin’s deal with the Wagner chief. He said only that Mr. Putin had provided Mr. Prigozhin with “certain guarantees,” with the aim of avoiding a “worst-case scenario.”

The mercenaries shot down at least six Russian helicopters and a military communications plane as they advanced on Moscow, according to Russian news reports. The Defense Ministry didn’t release any information about casualties, but media reports said at least a dozen airmen were killed.

Asked why the rebels were allowed to get as close as about 200 kilometers (about 125 miles) from Moscow without facing any serious resistance, National Guard chief Viktor Zolotov said authorities tried to assemble a strong force capable of stopping the onslaught.

“We concentrated our forces in one fist closer to Moscow,” he told reporters. “If we spread them thin, they would have come like a knife through butter.” Mr. Zolotov also said the National Guard lacks battle tanks and other heavy weapons and now would get them.

In a nationally televised address Monday night, Mr. Putin again blasted organizers of the rebellion as traitors who played into the hands of Ukraine’s government and its allies. Although critical of Mr. Prigozhin, Mr. Putin praised Wagner troops’ action in Ukraine and credited those who “didn’t engage in fratricidal bloodshed and stopped on the brink.”

That was “likely in an effort to retain them” in the fight in Ukraine because Moscow needs “trained and effective manpower” as it faces a Ukrainian counteroffensive, according to a Washington-based think tank.

The Institute for the Study of War also said the break between Mr. Putin and Mr. Prigozhin is likely beyond repair, and that providing the Wagner chief and his loyalists with Belarus as an apparent safe haven could be a trap.

In his Kremlin speech to soldiers and law enforcement officers on Tuesday, Mr. Putin praised them for averting “a civil war.”

As part of the effort to cement his authority following the chaotic response to the mutiny, the ceremony featured Mr. Putin walking down the red-carpeted stairs of the Kremlin’s 15th-century white stone Palace of Facets to address the troops.

Mr. Putin mentioned the casualties and honored them with a moment of silence.

“Pilots, our combat comrades, died while confronting the mutiny,” he said. “They didn’t waver and fulfilled the orders and their military duty with dignity.”

Some Russian war bloggers and patriotic activists have vented outrage about Mr. Prigozhin and his troops not getting punished for killing the airmen. Mr. Prigozhin voiced regret for the deaths in an audio statement Monday, but said Wagner troops fired because they were getting bombed.

In another show of projecting authority, Mr. Putin was shown meeting Monday night with top security, law enforcement, and military officials, including Mr. Shoigu. Mr. Putin thanked his team for their work over the weekend, implying support for the embattled Mr. Shoigu. Earlier, authorities released a video of Mr. Shoigu reviewing troops in Ukraine.

In his defiant statement Monday, Mr. Prigozhin taunted the Russian military but said he hadn’t been seeking to stage a coup against Mr. Putin. 

It isn’t clear whether he will be able to keep his mercenary force. Mr. Putin has offered Mr. Prigozhin’s fighters to either come under Russia’s Defense Ministry’s command, leave service, or go to Belarus.

Mr. Prigozhin said, without elaborating, that the Belarusian leadership proposed solutions that would allow Wagner to operate “in a legal jurisdiction,” but it was unclear what that meant.

Mr. Lukashenko said there is no reason to fear Wagner’s presence in his country, though in Russia there have been recent incidents of Wagner-recruited convicts being suspected of violent crimes. The Wagner troops have “priceless” military knowledge and experience they can share with Belarus, he said during a meeting with his defense minister

But Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who challenged Mr. Lukashenko in a 2020 election that was widely seen as fraudulent and triggered mass protests, said Wagner troops will threaten the country and its neighbors.

“Belarusians don’t welcome war criminal Mr. Prigozhin,” she told The Associated Press. “If Wagner sets up military bases on our territory, it will pose a new threat to our sovereignty and our neighbors.”

This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP writer Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed.