A top spokesman for Russian leader Vladimir Putin confirmed on Monday that the strongman met with the head of the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC), Yevgeny Prigozhin, on June 29, five days after Prigozhin led thousands of his soldiers in an abruptly halted mutiny against the Russian military.
The spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, claimed that Putin offered “employment” to the Wagner leaders at the meeting, including Prigozhin.
Prigozhin had been leading his mercenaries fighting in Ukraine, publishing regular messages condemning the Russian Defense Ministry for what he described as incompetence and corruption in the handling of the year-long “special operation” to oust Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. On June 23, Prigozhin announced via social media that the Defense Ministry had attacked his fighters and killed 2,000 Wagner mercenaries, forcing him to march 25,000 fighters back into Russia, first seizing the strategically important city of Rostov-on-Don and threatening to invade Moscow. The Russian government did not confirm the 25,000 troop estimate, nor have independent reports done so.
Fewer than 24 hours later, the communist dictator of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, announced that he had brokered an agreement between the Russian government and the Wagner group to allow Prigozhin exile in Belarus in exchange for an end to the mutiny. British intelligence reports claimed that Moscow ended the mutiny by threatening the lives of the families of Wagner fighters, a large percentage of whom live in Russia. The Russian government dropped charges and returned millions in confiscated loot to the Wagner chief.
Prigozhin has been a longtime ally to Putin – first entering the strongman’s inner circle by running one of Putin’s favorite restaurants – and insisted in messages during the short-lived uprising that it was “not a coup” and he did not intend to overthrow Putin. Instead, Prigozhin claimed, he sought the removal of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the top military brass, whom he claimed were harming Putin.
Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, revealed on Monday that, despite what appeared to be an attempt to overthrow his military – and a vow from Prigozhin not to march into Moscow – Putin welcomed Prigozhin for a meeting in Moscow on June 29, less than a week after the halted mutiny.
“The president had such a meeting. Thirty-five people were invited to it – all unit commanders and the company’s management, including Prigozhin himself,” Peskov told reporters, according to the state outlet RT. Peskov was responding to a report in the French newspaper Liberation, which had initially broken the news of the meeting.
“The only thing we can say is that the president gave an assessment of the company’s actions at the front line during the special military operation [in Ukraine], and also gave his assessment of the events of June 24,” Peskov explained. “Putin listened to the explanations of the commanders and offered them further employment options.”
The Wagner leaders, including Prigozhin, reportedly used the meeting as a way of “emphasizing that they are staunch supporters and soldiers of the head of state” and “ready to fight for the motherland going forward.”
Offering Prigozhin a job appears to be a significant shift away from Putin’s public declarations the weekend of June 23 that the “treasonous” Prigozhin and his fighters would face Russian justice for the uprising. Even in his vows to the Russian public that justice would be served against the Wagner leaders, however, Putin insisted that the “overwhelmingly majority” of Wagner’s mercenaries were “Russian patriots, devoted to their people and country,” and he left the door open for those fighters to become formal members of the Russian military.
Members of Wagner group looks from a military vehicle with the sign read as “Brother” in Rostov-on-Don late on June 24, 2023 (ROMAN ROMOKHOV/AFP via Getty Images).
“You have the opportunity to sign a contract with the Defense Ministry and other law enforcement agencies or return to your family and friends. Anyone, who wants to, can go to Belarus,” Putin said on June 26.
The Russian government also denied that it would halt Wagner’s international operations. As a private military service, Wagner has expanded its reach internationally, with a particularly formidable presence in Central African Republic (CAR), Mali, and Syria – where its fighters have developed a reputation for brutality and human rights atrocities. The Russian government denied that it would interfere in Wagner’s operations in those countries, noting that CAR and Mali in particular had reached out to the Putin government requesting that, despite the results of the mutiny, Wagner’s presence in those countries could remain undisturbed.
Wagner’s presence in Ukraine also remains an unanswered question, though both Wagner and the Russian government have indicated a desire for Prigozhin’s forces to continue fighting the Ukrainian military. Prigozhin has insisted in video and audio social media messages that he supports the invasion of Ukraine and Putin’s goals there, and his feud with the Russian Defense Ministry is driven by the latter’s perceived inability to deliver on the “special operation.”
In a message shortly after the march on Moscow was canceled, Prigozhin noted that his mercenaries marched into Rostov-on-Don with minimal interruption and appeared poised to storm Moscow without a major challenge. He compared this to attempts to seize Kyiv, which Ukrainian forces have repeatedly thwarted.
“We showed a master-class on how February 24, 2022, had to look. We turned around to avoid spilling the blood of Russian soldiers. We regret that we had to hit Russian aviation,” Prigozhin asserted.
“We didn’t march to overthrow Russia’s leadership,” he continued in the same message. “The aim of the march was to avoid the destruction of Wagner and to hold to account the officials who, through their unprofessional actions, have committed a massive number of errors.”
“We went to demonstrate our protest, and not to overthrow power in the country,” he insisted.
Activists hold a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin near Red Square in Moscow, on June 24, 2023 (NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP via Getty Images).
Following Prigozhin’s repeated assertions that he did not seek to overthrow Putin or enact regime change in Russia, the Russian government announced it would return $111 million in gold bars and multiple currencies seized in the immediate aftermath of the march on Moscow, a gesture indicating the potential for further cooperation between Wagner and the Putin regime. Lukashenko confirmed at the time that Prigozhin was not in Belarus and had reportedly returned to St. Petersburg to pick up his confiscated loot.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his meeting with officers of the Russian army and secret services who prevented invasion of PMC Wagner Group to Russian capital on June 27, 2023, in Moscow, Russia (Contributor/Getty Images).
“Perhaps he went to Moscow this morning,” Lukashenko joked at the time, adding, “What will happen to him next? Strange things happen in life but if you think Putin is so malicious and vindictive that he will ‘wipe him out’ tomorrow – to say it in Russian – no, this will not happen.”