Moscow, Russia
Reuters
Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin flew to Belarus from Russia on Tuesday after a mutiny that dealt the biggest blow to President Vladimir Putin’s authority since he came to power more than 23 years ago.
Putin initially vowed to crush the mutiny, comparing it to the wartime turmoil that ushered in the revolution of 1917 and then a civil war, but hours later a deal was clinched to allow Prigozhin and some of his fighters to go to Belarus.
Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves the headquarters of the Southern Military District amid the group’s pullout from the city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on 24th June, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Alexander Ermochenko/File photo
Prigozhin, a 62-year-old former petty thief who rose to become Russia’s most powerful mercenary, was last seen in public when he left the southern Russian city of Rostov on Saturday, shaking hands and quipping that he had “cheered up” people.
Flightradar24 showed an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet that appeared in Russia’s Rostov region at 0232 GMT and later began a descent at 0420 GMT near Minsk, the Belarusian capital.
US TARGETS WAGNER GROUP IN CURBS ON GOLD FIRMS SUSPECTED OF FUNDING MERCENARY FORCE
The United States took aim at Russia’s Wagner Group and imposed sanctions on Tuesday on companies it accused of engaging in illicit gold dealings to fund the mercenary force.
The US Treasury Department in a statement said it slapped sanctions on four companies in the United Arab Emirates, Central African Republic and Russia it accused of being connected to the Wagner Group and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
The companies engaged in illicit gold dealings to fund the militia to sustain and expand its armed forces, including in Ukraine and some countries in Africa, the Treasury said.
“The Wagner Group funds its brutal operations in part by exploiting natural resources in countries like the Central African Republic and Mali,” the Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, said in a statement.
“The United States will continue to target the Wagner Group’s revenue streams to degrade its expansion and violence in Africa, Ukraine, and anywhere else.”
The Wagner Group did not immediately respond to the US allegations.
The US State Department ahead of the announcement said that the action against Wagner was unrelated to an aborted mutiny last weekend.
Wagner, whose men in Ukraine include thousands of ex-prisoners recruited from Russian jails, has grown into a sprawling international business with mining interests and fighters in Africa and the Middle East.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the finances of Prigozhin’s catering firm would be investigated after his mutiny, saying Wagner and its founder had received almost $US2 billion from Russia in the past year.
Wagner has fought in Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic, Mali and other countries, and has fought the bloodiest battles of the 16-month-old war in Ukraine. It was founded in 2014 after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and started supporting pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
The United States has previously imposed sanctions on Wagner and Prigozhin. Washington has repeatedly warned of what it says are Wagner’s destabilizing activities and has ramped up sanctions against the private army following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The companies hit with sanctions on Tuesday included Central African Republic-based Midas Ressources SARLU and Diamville SAU, Dubai-based Industrial Resources General Trading and Russia-based Limited Liability Company DM.
The United States also issued an advisory highlighting risks raised by gold trade in sub-Saharan Africa due to what it said was increasingly concerning reporting related to the role of illicit actors, including the Wagner Group.
Washington also imposed sanctions on Andrey Nikolayevich Ivanov, a Russian national the Treasury accused of being an executive in the Wagner Group and said he worked closely with senior Malian officials on weapons deals, mining concerns and other Wagner activities in the country.
Russia’s embassy in Washington and Industrial Resources did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters could not immediately reach a spokesperson for Midas Ressources, Diamville or Limited Liability Company DM.
– DAPHNE PSALEDAKIS, HUMEYRA PAMUK and COSTAS PITAS, Washington DC, US/Reuters
The identification codes of the aircraft matched those of a jet linked by the United States to Autolex Transport, which is linked to Prigozhin by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control that enforces sanctions.
“I see Prigozhin is already flying in on this plane,” Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was quoted as saying by state news agency BELTA. “Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today.”
Under a deal mediated by Lukashenko on Saturday to halt a mutinous march on Moscow by Prigozhin’s mercenary fighters, Prigozhin was meant to move to Belarus.
Lukashenko said he had convinced Prigozhin in an emotional, expletive-laden phone call to scrap the mutiny over what the Wagner boss called corruption and incompetence in the Russian military command. He said he warned Prigozhin halfway on the march to Moscow that “you’ll just be crushed like a bug”.
Lukashenko, both an old acquiantance of Prigozhin and close ally of Putin, said that Putin had sought his help and that he had advised the Russian president against “rushing” to suppress the Wagner mutineers.
Speaking from Cathedral Square inside the Kremlin, Putin thanked Russia’s army and security services for stopping a civil war from breaking out in the world’s biggest nuclear power.
Prigozhin’s “march for justice”, which he said was aimed at settling scores with Putin’s military top brass whom he cast as treasonous, has raised the prospect of turmoil in Russia while undermining Putin’s reputation as an all-powerful leader.
The Kremlin said Putin’s position had however not been shaken by the mutiny, dismissing such interpretations as hysteria from “pseudo-specialists.” It said the events showed how Russian society had consolidated around the president.
Wagner’s future
Just hours after casting the mutineers as traitors on Saturday, Putin agreed to a deal to drop criminal charges against them in exchange for their return to camps, with Prigozhin and some of his fighters to move to Belarus.
It is not yet clear whether Wagner – created to fight proxy wars for the Kremlin in a deniable form – will survive the mutiny, and if it does, what it might do next.
Prigozhin, who has bragged about meddling in US elections, said last week his fighting force was 25,000 strong.
Lukashenko said Belarus was not building any camps for Wagner group, but had offered the mercenaries an abandoned military base.
With strong ties to Russian military intelligence (GRU), Wagner has been able to recruit some of Russia’s best special forces soldiers with significant cash salaries and generous payouts for families of fallen soldiers.
One option, if Wagner survives, would be for it to return to Africa – where it has gained a fearsome reputation especially in Central African Republic and Mali – or to attack Ukraine from the north, opening up a new Russian front in the war there.
While the Federal Security Service said it had dropped a criminal case against Prigozhin for armed mutiny, Putin said that the finances of Prigozhin’s catering firm would be investigated, saying Wagner and its founder had received almost $US2 billion from Russia in the past year.
Putin said Wagner had received 86 billion roubles ($US1 billion) from the defence ministry between May, 2022, and May, 2023.
In addition, Prigozhin’s Concord catering company made 80 billion roubles from state contracts to supply food to the Russian army, Putin said.
“I do hope that, as part of this work, no one stole anything, or, let’s say, stole less, but we will, of course, investigate all of this,” he said.
