Thousands of Wagner fighters face a choice
On Sunday Russian state media reported that Wagner troops had returned to their camps in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, after Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted march on Moscow. They now have a choice to make: during a furious five-minute televised speech last night, Putin condemned the rebellion but said Wagner’s rank-and-file could join the Russian army, go home or join Prigozhin in Belarus. Prigozhin, whose exact whereabouts are still unknown, said in an audio message released yesterday that the march was a protest against attempts to force his fighters to sign contracts with the military by 1 July. He said Belarus’s Lukashenko would help keep Wagner – which also spreads terror across Africa and the Middle East – operational within a “legal jurisdiction”. Whatever that means. Prigozhin’s options may be limited by the seizure of billions of rubles in cash and gold bars from his St Petersburg headquarters on Saturday.
Photograph Roman Romokhov/AFP via Getty Images