Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the chief of the Wagner mercenary group who mounted a quick rebellion in opposition to Russia’s army command over the weekend, has not been seen in public since calling off his mutiny on Saturday, including to the confusion surrounding an episode that has challenged Russia’s veneer of political stability.
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, had mentioned on Saturday that underneath a deal to finish hostilities, Mr. Prigozhin had agreed to depart Russia for neighboring Belarus. In return, Mr. Peskov mentioned, the investigation into Mr. Prigozhin and the costs in opposition to him for launching the armed insurrection can be dropped.
However in keeping with Russian media reviews revealed on Monday, the legal case in opposition to Mr. Prigozhin stays open and the costs in opposition to him haven’t been dropped. Kommersant, a Russian newspaper, and the nation’s three predominant information businesses — Tass, RIA and Interfax — all reported that the Federal Safety Service, or F.S.B., continued to analyze.
The publications, all both state-controlled or affiliated with the Kremlin, cited nameless sources, so their reviews couldn’t be independently verified. If the proceedings proceed, Mr. Prigozhin might withstand 20 years in jail.
Mr. Prigozhin was final seen publicly smiling and shaking fingers with supporters when he left the southern Russian metropolis of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday evening, after he known as an finish to his transient rebellion in opposition to the army management and turned again the column of troopers he had despatched on a march to Moscow.
Movies of Mr. Prigozhin’s departure from Rostov-on-Don, the place Wagner troops briefly seized a army set up on Saturday, emerged shortly after Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the autocratic chief of Belarus and a reliable ally of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, introduced he had mediated the deal to finish the hostilities. Many observers have raised doubts over whether or not Mr. Prigozhin can be protected in Belarus, given the federal government’s shut ties to Mr. Putin.
Since then, his whereabouts have been unknown, and Mr. Prigozhin, who has been usually profanely outspoken on social media channels all through Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, has not commented publicly about departing for Belarus. On Sunday night, Mr. Prigozhin’s press service advised RTVI, a Russian TV channel, that he “says hello to everybody and can reply questions” when he has good cellphone reception.
On Saturday, throughout a raid of the five-star Trezzini Resort in St. Petersburg, which is owned by one in every of Mr. Prigozhin’s corporations and believed to be the location of one in every of his places of work, native information shops reported that cops had discovered billions of rubles, packs of an unidentified “white powder” and gold bars.
On Saturday, earlier than he introduced the mutiny to an finish, Mr. Prigozhin acknowledged that he was in possession of huge quantities of money. The cash, he mentioned, was used to pay the wages of Wagner troops and to compensate kin of Wagner fighters killed in motion in Ukraine, a sum that quantities to 5 million rubles per household (about $59,000).
“For 10 years, Wagner operated on a cash-only foundation,” he mentioned in an audio recording. “Once we had been working in Africa, Ukraine and different international locations, after we had been scaring America, everybody was pleased with money,” he mentioned, an obvious reference to a troll farm he has admitted utilizing to meddle in U.S. elections. “And now they’re right here to go looking. It’s OK. The money was truly discovered.”
Regardless of the severity of Mr. Prigozhin’s actions over the weekend, which Mr. Putin labeled treason, some Russian officers have been reluctant to criticize Wagner fighters, who’ve confirmed themselves to be efficient, if brutal, in combating on Russia’s behalf in Ukraine and different conflicts.
Andrei Kartapolov, the chairman of the Russian Parliament’s protection committee, mentioned Sunday that the Wagner fighters who took over the military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don “didn’t do something reprehensible” and had merely “adopted the orders of their command.”
“They didn’t offend anybody, they didn’t break something,” he mentioned. “Nobody has the slightest declare in opposition to them — neither the residents of Rostov, nor the army personnel of the Southern Navy District, nor the regulation enforcement businesses.”
