so close to getting it: Lukashenko says he told Putin not to kill Prigozhin because "a bad peace is better than any war.”
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Here are the latest developments.
The Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny V. Prigozhin arrived in Belarus on Tuesday, the Belarusian state news media reported, ending days of speculation over his whereabouts after he called off a weekend uprising that marked the most dramatic challenge to President Vladimir V. Putin’s rule in two decades.
New details emerged about the negotiations that ended the daylong rebellion, as President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, Russia’s closest ally, described his phone conversations with Mr. Putin and Mr. Prigozhin as the Wagner mercenaries were marching to Moscow on Saturday.
According to his own account reported in Belarusian state media, Mr. Lukashenko said Mr. Putin had raised the possibility of killing Mr. Prigozhin. But Mr. Lukashenko said that he had urged against a rushed response, saying that “a bad peace is better than any war.” The Belarusian leader said that he had then called Mr. Prigozhin, warning him that Mr. Putin intended to “squash him like a bug.” The account could not be immediately confirmed.
In Moscow, Mr. Putin praised his security forces in a highly choreographed speech, portraying the rebellion as a heroic episode for the Russian state and thanking the military for having “essentially stopped a civil war,” state media reported.
It was the latest in a series of appearances since the mutiny in which Mr. Putin has tried to seize the political initiative, suggesting Mr. Prigozhin has enriched himself at the country’s expense and indirectly warning of consequences for officials who helped him do so.
Here are other developments:
The Russian authorities dropped an investigation into Mr. Prigozhin and members of his Wagner group over the armed rebellion. The group was preparing to hand over military equipment to the Russian Army, state news media reported, as the Kremlin mounts a concerted effort to move on from the mutiny.
There was no immediate response from the Wagner group or from Mr. Prigozhin to the announcement the investigation had been ended. And there were few details on how much Wagner equipment would be relinquished or how many of its fighters — whose numbers Mr. Prigozhin recently put at 25,000 — would agree to be placed under the Russian Army’s command.
In brief remarks at the Kremlin on Tuesday, Mr. Putin said that some Russian airmen had “died in the confrontation with the mutineers,” and he praised them for carrying out their duties. In a televised speech on Monday night, a visibly angry Mr. Putin denounced the mutiny as “blackmail” that had been “doomed to failure,” though he did not name Mr. Prigozhin, his erstwhile ally.
Mr. Lukashenko denied that Wagner troops would guard the nuclear weapons Russia deployed in Belarus. He said he had offered the mercenary group an “abandoned” military base in the country, but it was still unclear on Tuesday if any of its members had arrived.
Ukraine appears to be seizing more river islands around the southern city of Kherson in a possible expansion of its counteroffensive, according to residents and Russian military bloggers.
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