Moscow: Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Russian mercenaries, flew into exile in Belarus on Tuesday as part of an agreement that put an end to a brief rebellion by his soldiers, and President Vladimir Putin praised his armed forces for preventing a civil war.
On a flight tracking website, a plane connected to Prigozhin could be seen taking off early on Tuesday from Rostov in southern Russia and landing in Belarus.
President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus said, "I see Prigozhin is already flying in on this plane," according to the official news agency BELTA. "Yes, he is in Belarus right now,"
Following the rebellion led by Prigozhin in opposition to the way the Russian military was handling the conflict in Ukraine, Putin looked to reassert his power in Moscow.
According to state news agency RIA, Russian authorities also dropped a criminal case against his Wagner Group mercenary force, ostensibly satisfying another requirement of the agreement mediated by Lukashenko late on Saturday that diffused the crisis.
Former Putin ally and ex-convict Prigozhin had earlier declared he would travel to Belarus at the invitation of Lukashenko, a close Putin ally and acquaintance of the Wagner leader, whose mercenaries had participated in the bloodiest battles of the Ukraine War and suffered greatly.
Ukraine is pressing a counteroffensive to retake occupied territory in the south and east and is hoping that the commotion brought on by the mutiny attempt will weaken Russian defences.
Also Read: New York Times: A senior Russian general was aware of Prigozhin's plans
Tuesday brought little in the way of battlefield developments, but two Russian missiles did manage to hit a restaurant in Kramatorsk, a city in the Donetsk region, in the east. The head of President Volodymyr Zelensky's administration, Andriy Yermak, reported on Telegram that there were four fatalities and 42 injuries, including one child.
The structure had been reduced to a tangled network of metal beams. "There is no longer any glass, windows, or doors. "All I see is destruction, terror, and horror," said 64-year-old Valentyna.
Since beginning what it terms a "special military operation" in Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians.
An Embraer Legacy 600 jet with identification codes that correspond to a plane linked to Prigozhin in US sanctions documents was seen descending near the Belarusian capital Minsk early on Tuesday.
It first appeared over Rostov, the southern Russian city that Prigozhin's fighters took during the uprising, on the tracking site.
After directing his men to stand down, Prigozhin was observed on Saturday night grinning and high-fiving bystanders as he drove out of Rostov in the back of an SUV. In Belarus, he has not yet been spotted in the open.
At a ceremony on a square within the Kremlin complex in Moscow, Putin informed the 2,500 Russian security personnel that the military and the populace were united in opposition to the rebel mercenaries.
You have prevented chaos in our motherland. You actually prevented a civil war, he said. Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, whos dismissal was one of the main demands of the mutineers, joined Putin.
The deal ending the mutiny was being put into effect, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during a news briefing on Tuesday. Russian authorities have made an effort to imply that things are getting back to normal. Peskov scoffed at the notion that Putin's hold on authority had been threatened by the rebellion, branding such ideas as "hysteria."
Prigozhin, 62, claimed he started the rebellion to save his squad after being told to hand it over to the defence ministry, which he has criticised for being ineffective in the conflict in Ukraine.
After almost reaching Moscow, his fighters ended their campaign on Saturday in order to stop any bloodshed, he claimed. In an audio message on Monday, Prigozhin stated, "We went as a demonstration of protest, not to overthrow the government of the country.
On Tuesday, Lukashenko claimed that his nation had offered Wagner fighters an old military installation. According to BELTA, Lukashenko reportedly said, "Please — we have a fence, we have everything — put up your tents."
Some of Belarus' neighbours were alarmed by the idea of Wagner establishing a base there. In response, Latvia and Lithuania urged NATO to fortify its eastern borders; Polish President Andrzej Duda called this a "negative signal."
Also Read: Russian attack on restaurant in eastern Ukraine results in at least 8 deaths
Gitanas Nauseda, the president of Lithuania, claimed that the stationing of Wagner fighters in Belarus would cause instability in the region.
After a meeting with the heads of seven NATO nations in The Hague, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters that the alliance had "sent a clear message to Moscow and Minsk that NATO is there to protect every ally, every inch of NATO territory."
According to a Pentagon statement, Washington announced $500 million in new aid, including vehicles and munitions, after providing Ukraine with more than $10 billion in military aid.
