Russian President Vladimir V. Putin held an extended meeting with Yevgeny V. Prigozhin just five days after his private military company Wagner started a brief mutiny, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov said Monday, citing “further employment opportunities” for the mercenary group were among the topics discussed.
It is the first known contact between the two men since Wagner’s uprising, which most dramatically challenged Putin’s authority in his more than two decades in power. But the Kremlin’s report on the meeting left a number of unanswered questions about the future of the mercenary group.
Mr. Putin invited 35 people to the three-hour meeting on June 29, including Mr. Prigozhin and all of Wagner’s top commanders, the Kremlin spokesman said. He did not specify where the meeting took place. The details of the agreements reached at the meeting remain unclear, and Mr Prigozhin has said nothing since the failed mutiny.
“The only thing we can say is that the president gave his assessment of the company’s actions,” Mr. Peskov said both during the war in Ukraine and during the uprising.
The commanders gave Mr Putin their version of events, he added. “Putin listened to the commanders and suggested further employment and combat options,” Peskov said. The fighters also pledged their loyalty to the Russian president.
“They emphasized that they are staunch supporters and soldiers of the head of state and commander-in-chief – and also said that they are ready to fight for the country in the future,” Peskov said.
That the Wagner officials were able to attend a peaceful meeting with the Russian leader and express their displeasure even after Mr Putin denounced them as traitors on national television and vowed to crush their uprising shows the power Mr. Prigozhin has amassed as president leader von Wagner, whose forces led the campaign to capture Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, in what has been one of Russia’s rare battlefield victories in recent months.
It also suggests that the Kremlin may view the mercenaries, at least for now, as a threat better left hidden than sidelined into a damaged and armed opposition.
But Mr Putin is treading a dangerous path, and any indulgence shown to Mr Prigozhin and his commanders is likely to be met with contempt from his own Defense Ministry, whose leadership has been the object of Wagner’s wrath for months and whose stated aim was his short-lived rebellion.
Members of the Wagner group in Rostov-on-Don, Russia last month. Source: Roman Romokhov/Agence France-Presse – Getty Images
On June 24, the Wagner mercenaries captured the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and a key Russian military headquarters there before beginning a short-lived march on Moscow.
Mr. Prigozhin claimed that the mutiny was aimed not at overthrowing Mr. Putin or his government, but at overthrowing top Russian military leaders, Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery V. Gerasimov.
Nonetheless, Mr Putin hit back hard, appearing in a nationwide address to denounce the uprising as treasonous and to warn of a slide into a new Russian civil war. Mr Putin promised the harshest punishment for those who “consciously chose the path of treason.”
But there were no severe penalties.
Hours later, the Kremlin announced a deal, apparently brokered by autocratic Belarusian leader Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, under which Mr Prigozhin would resign, avoid prosecution and leave Russia for Belarus. Wagner fighters who took part in the mutiny would also be released and escape punishment; Those who did not participate were given the opportunity to sign Russian military contracts.
The agreement sparked outrage from some Russian commentators, who were angered that the insurgent mercenaries remained unpunished for shooting down Russian planes and killing an unspecified number of employees.
The Kremlin has changed its statement on Mr. Prigozhin’s whereabouts. On June 29, the day of the meeting between Mr. Putin and Mr. Prigozhin, the Kremlin spokesman told reporters he did not know where the mercenary boss was.
The following week, on July 6, Mr. Peskov said the Kremlin had neither the “ability nor the desire” to follow Mr. Prigozhin’s movements.
The next day, the French newspaper Liberation reported that Mr Putin met with Mr Prigozhin and his commanders in the Kremlin to “negotiate the fate of his empire”.
On Monday, Mr. Peskov confirmed that the meeting with Mr. Putin took place. The Kremlin spokesman added: “The details of this are unknown.”