Wagner troops can keep fighting, but without Prigozhin, Putin says

MOSCOW - Three weeks after a

brief mutiny in Russia by the Wagner mercenary group,

President Vladimir Putin said its troops could keep fighting, but without their

controversial leader,

while the government of Belarus said some Wagner fighters were there, training its forces.

The future of Wagner and its personnel, who have played an important role in Mr Putin’s war against Ukraine, remains in doubt, part of the dissension and turmoil in the Russian military hierarchy that has spilled into public view since the rebellion.

But the Russian leader made clear that he intends to sideline Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who directed the uprising.

Mr Putin, in an interview published late on Thursday, gave an account of a three-hour meeting in the Kremlin, just days after the uprising, with Prigozhin and his top commanders.

Mr Putin, who has tried hard since the mutiny to demonstrate his unassailable control over state affairs, presented himself in the interview as a cool-headed arbiter towering above the tumult and portrayed the mutiny as a minor internal dispute that he had resolved.

He said he had praised Wagner fighters for their military feats and suggested that a different Wagner leader take over from Prigozhin, according to Kommersant, a Russian business daily that, along with a journalist from state television, conducted the interview.

Mr Putin said he told the Wagner troops that he “regretted that they had appeared dragged” into the mutiny, appearing to pin the blame on Prigozhin.

“I outlined the possible paths for their future military service, including in combat,” he added.

“Many nodded as I was speaking,” Mr Putin said, but Prigozhin, who he said sat in the front and didn’t see the nodding, responded that the “guys do not agree with such a decision”.

The government has ordered that Wagner troops who intend to keep fighting sign contracts with the Ministry of Defence, in effect becoming part of Russia’s regular military, which Prigozhin bitterly protested. But Mr Putin’s latest comments appeared to leave open the possibility that there could continue to be Wagner units.

Mr Putin wants to draw a sharp distinction between Wagner fighters, whose experience and expertise he can exploit, and the mercenary leader he now sees as reckless and untrustworthy, according to Ms Tatiana Stanovaya, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“They want to preserve the core of Wagner but under different leadership, one that is clearly much more loyal, and even controllable,” Ms Stanovaya said in a phone interview.

“That meeting was a sign of reconciliation – not in the sense that the conflict is over, but in the sense that there are now rules of the game; you have to follow them,” she added.

A Kremlin spokesman first disclosed the meeting early this week, saying that the Wagner commanders had aired their concerns – a striking admission considering that days earlier, Mr Putin had denounced the uprising’s leaders as traitors.

President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, who helped broker the end of Wagner’s uprising on June 24, said soon afterward that his country would welcome its fighters, and the Belarusian military quickly erected tent housing for thousands of troops at a disused base 14.5km from the town of Asipovichy, about 80km south-east of the capital, Minsk.

But last week, Mr Lukashenko said there were no Wagner troops yet in Belarus, and the military invited foreign journalists to the camp to show that it was unoccupied.

On Friday, though, the Belarusian Defence Ministry said in a statement that Wagner soldiers were

instructing members of a Belarusian military force in defence and battlefield tactics.

A state television channel broadcast video of what its correspondent said was training by Wagner fighters “at a training base near Asipovichy”, but the affiliations of the troops in the video could not be independently verified.

A ministry spokesman confirmed that at least part of the video was taken at the same site as the new tent camp.

Prigozhin has said his rebellion was not aimed at toppling Mr Putin but at removing the military leaders in Moscow he had spent months denouncing as inept, in foul-mouthed tirades that the President tolerated.

After sending an armoured column rolling toward the capital, he called off their advance after receiving assurances that he and the Wagner troops would not be punished.

The Pentagon said on Thursday that Wagner troops are no longer believed to be fighting in a major capacity in Ukraine.

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that Wagner fighters had given up a lot of their weapons and equipment.

With the mercenaries apparently inactive and largely disarmed, the Kremlin has been making a clear attempt to diminish the role of their unruly leader.

Prigozhin’s media empire, including several news websites, has been shut down, and his St Petersburg mansion has been a regular feature of Russian state television, which portrayed its owner as a petty and immoral thug stockpiling cash, weapons, passports and possibly drugs.

Mr Putin has identified as possibly the new leader of Wagner a man known as “Sedoi”, or “Gray-haired”, who the President said had been the actual commander of Wagner troops since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

European Union sanctions documents, Wagner-linked bloggers and Russian media outlets have identified Sedoi as Mr Andrei Troshev, a veteran of wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya. The sanctions documents referred to Mr Troshev as a “founding member” and “executive director” of Wagner.

Mr Putin has maintained an ambiguous stance on Wagner’s future, apparently leaving his options open.

Days after the mutiny, he said that Russia had paid Wagner almost US$1 billion (S$1.32 billion) in one year, but in the interview reported by Kommersant, he said that Wagner “does not exist”, at least legally.

“We don’t have a law on private military organisations,” Mr Putin said.

“There isn’t such a legal entity.” NYTIMES