Russia’s Prigozhin probe ongoing despite claimed truce: Report

The Criminal Investigation into Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Attempted Mutiny

The criminal investigation into Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the private Russian mercenary group known as Wagner, for his attempted mutiny is still open, according to Russian media.

Prigozhin, who ordered his forces to march to Moscow this weekend in a stunning attempt to take on top Russian leaders directly following months of public and blistering criticism, abruptly agreed to pull his troops back and flee to neighboring Belarus in exchange for clemency from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The criminal case against Prigozhin has not been closed. The investigation is continuing,” a source in the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office told TASS on Monday.

Threatening a “March for Justice”

Following a decree that his soldiers would have to join the Russian military and a subsequent supposed air attack on his forces by the ministry, Prigozhin declared a “march for justice” on Friday, in which he threatened to take his private army to Moscow.

Putin, in public remarks, said the threat from the Wagner Group posed an existential risk.

“We are fighting for the lives and security of our people, for our sovereignty and independence, for the right to remain Russia, a state with a thousand-year history,” Putin said, adding that the government will hold those who “prepared an armed insurrection” accountable.

The Belarusian-Brokered Deal

Prigozhin’s troops briefly seized the southern Russian city of Rostov and started making their way toward Moscow when Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime announced it had brokered a deal between Putin and his former caterer.

“Negotiations continued throughout the day. As a result, they came to agreements on the inadmissibility of unleashing a bloody massacre on the territory of Russia,” Lukashenko’s press service announced, per the Moscow Times. “Yevgeny Prigozhin accepted President Alexander Lukashenko’s proposal to stop the movement of Wagner’s armed men in Russia and to take further steps to de-escalate tensions.”

Prigozhin’s location remains unknown, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in the aftermath of the deal that the “criminal case will be dropped against him,” though that appears not to be the case.

A Public Threat to Putin’s Reign

The short-lived challenge to Putin represents one of the most public threats to his reign in more than two decades. U.S. officials, who have remained in close contact with their allies, argue that the weekend’s rebellion demonstrates “cracks” within Putin’s own circles.

“We don’t have full information obviously, and it is too soon to tell exactly where this is going to go. And I suspect that this is a moving picture and we haven’t seen the last act yet. But we could say this. First of all, what we’ve seen is extraordinary. And I think you’ve seen cracks emerge that weren’t there before,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday.

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