Where is Yevgeny Prigozhin? What’s happening with Wagner Group?

Russian president Vladimir Putin on Monday night blasted the organisers of the Wagner Group’s rebellion as ‘traitors’.This came days after the Kremlin announced that Yevgeny Prigozhin and his fighters would not be prosecuted.But where is Prigozhin? And what is happening with the Wagner Group?Let’s take a closer look:Where is Prigozhin?According to CNN, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday said he is unaware of Prigozhin’s whereabouts.The Kremlin earlier said a deal had been reached to exile Prigozhin to Belarus, but details of such an agreement have not been made public.“We are talking about a rather sad and very extraordinary event. A lot of work has been done by a number of people. I repeat once again, the will of the president was demonstrated to prevent the development of events according to the worst scenario," Peskov was quoted as saying by CNN.

"There were certain promises from the president, certain guarantees from the president."

But an independent Belarusian military monitoring project Belaruski Hajun said a business jet that Prigozhin reportedly uses landed near Minsk on Tuesday morning.Flightradar24 showed the business jet appeared in Rostov region and began a descent near Minsk, news agency Reuters reported.Prigozhin on Monday in his first statement since the deal was reached, claimed he was not staging a coup, but simply protesting top Russian brass’ ineffective leadership in the Ukraine war, as per DW."We started our march because of an injustice," Prigozhin said on the 11-minute Telegram clip as per DW."We went to demonstrate our protest and not to overthrow power in the country," he added.“Overnight, we have walked 780 kilometers. Two hundred-something kilometers were left to Moscow,” Prigozhin said as per CNN. “Not a single soldier on the ground was killed."“We regret that we were forced to strike on aircraft," he added. "...but these aircraft dropped bombs and launched missile strikes."According to Mint, Prigozhin was last seen in public in an SUV on Saturday as his troops withdrew from Rostov."Lukashenko held out his hand and offered to find solutions for the continuation of the work of the Wagner private military company in a legal jurisdiction," Prigozhin said, as per DW.Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close Putin ally who brokered a deal with Prigozhin to stop the uprising, didn’t immediately address Prigozhin’s fate in a speech Tuesday.[caption id="attachment_12792052" align="alignnone" width="640"]

President Vladimir Putin on Monday blasted organisers of the rebellion.[/caption]Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron hand for 29 years, relentlessly stifling dissent and relying on Russian subsidies and political support, portrayed the uprising as the latest development in a clash between Prigozhin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.Their long-simmering personal feud has at times boiled over, and Prigozhin has said the revolt aimed to unseat Shoigu, not Putin.Lukashenko framed the insurrection by Wagner as a significant threat, saying he placed Belarus’ armed forces on a combat footing as the mutiny unfolded.Like Putin, he couched the Ukraine war in terms of an existential threat to Russia, saying: “If Russia collapses, we all will perish under the debris.”Russian authorities on Tuesday they said have closed a criminal investigation into the armed rebellion led by mercenary Prigozhin, with no charges against him or any of the other participants.The Federal Security Service, or FSB, said its investigation found that those involved in the mutiny “ceased activities directed at committing the crime,” so the case would not be pursued.But the Institute for the Study of War noted that the break between Putin and Prigozhin is likely beyond repair and that providing the Wagner chief and his loyalists with Belarus as an apparent safe haven could be a trap.What happens next with Wagner Group?Experts aren’t quite sure what happens next.According to Sydney Morning Herald, the Kremlin on Tuesday announced as per the terms of the deal the Wagner Group mercenaries have agreed to hand over their weaponry, as per Sydney Morning Herald.“Preparations are ongoing for the transfer by Wagner PMC of heavy military equipment to active units of the Armed Forces of Russia,” the ministry said.While Putin was critical of Prigozhin in his speech, he praised the work of Wagner commanders,  that was “likely in an effort to retain them” in the Russian effort in Ukraine, because Moscow needs “trained and effective manpower” as it faces the early stages of a Ukrainian counteroffensive, according to a Washington-based think-tank.But according to NPR, it remains unclear whether the group itself will be dissolved – or what doing so could do in places like Ukraine and Africa where its mercenaries are operating.In his speech, Putin offered Prigozhin’s fighters to either come under Russia’s Defence Ministry’s command, leave service or go to Belarus.

BBC editor Ros Atkins predicted the end for Wagner Group in its current form.

“Russia’s defence ministry has plans to centralise control of ‘irregular forces’ like Wagner,” Atkins said. “But his mutiny failed to stop the plans.”Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator think-tank, told NPR, "It's really important for us to reserve our judgment and see how things play out over the coming days, and in particular to watch what Prigozhin is going to say and where he's going to pop up in the coming days."AFP reported that the Belarusian leadership proposed solutions that would allow Wagner to operate “in a legal jurisdiction."It remains unclear what this means.With inputs from agenciesRead all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.