Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the private military company the Wagner Group, is in Belarus after his personal army staged and then halted an armed rebellion against Moscow, Belarus’s president said Tuesday.
Prigozhin, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, stopped his advance just more than 100 miles from the capital after Putin reportedly struck a deal with him to be exiled to the former Soviet state.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Prigozhin and some of his troops were welcome in his country “for some time” and at their expense, The Associated Press reported.
Prigozhin’s arrival in Belarus was also noted by airspace monitor the Belarusian Hajun project, which reported that a plane belonging to the Wagner chief landed at a military airfield about 12 miles from the capital of Minsk on Tuesday morning.
The plane had taken off from a southwestern Russian region bordering Ukraine, the Hajun project said.
Prigozhin has not been seen since leaving the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday evening, though he posted an audio message to social media Monday afternoon.
Putin reportedly agreed to allow Prigozhin to go into exile and escape criminal prosecution after a deal was negotiated following the uprising, which lasted less than 24 hours after the Wagner leader declared it Friday. As part of the agreement, Wagner will hand over its heavy weapons to the Kremlin’s military, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
The brief insurrection has shaken Russia’s leadership, with Putin calling those who moved against Moscow traitors.
Experts have since speculated that the relationship between Putin and Prigozhin is now too contentious to last and that Belarus could be a trap for the Wagner chief and his loyalists.