Prigozhin Photo May Offer Clue to His Whereabouts

A recently surfaced photo of Yevgeny Prigozhin may provide insight into the Wagner Group leader's status following his failed rebellion late last month.

According to the latest assessment of the Russian-Ukraine battle from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian milbloggers have been circulating the picture on social media, which shows Prigozhin sitting on a bed inside a makeshift tent. In the picture, which was also shared to Twitter by Igor Sushko, executive director of the Wind of Change Research Group, Prigozhin is shown without any pants on and waving at the cameraman.

The image may be a sign that Prigozhin is either en route to or has taken up shelter at a Belarusian military camp, just a few days after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that the Wagner leader was in Russia. Prigozhin led his private mercenaries in a 24-hour mutiny against the Russian military on June 24, but paused his march toward Moscow after striking a peace deal with Lukashenko.

Prigozhin's status at the Wagner organization, and his relationship to Russian President Vladimir Putin, have remained uncertain since late June, but the photo gained traction online the same day that the Belarusian Ministry of Defense shared footage of Wagner instructors training Belarusian troops at a military camp. According to a Belarusian insider source, the mercenary instructors came from Wagner's deployed troops in Africa.

The ISW previously cited reports of large field camps that were being set up throughout Belarus for Wagner training, and Lukashenko has said that safety guarantees for Prigozhin's mercenaries were part of the negotiations reached to end the rebellion. While questions still remain about the future of the Wagner Group, reports of its forces in Belarus have unnerved some NATO leaders, who fear that the troops' new location could pose a threat to neighboring countries.

"They could be and emerge in Belarus at any moment," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda previously said. "And nobody knows when they could turn against us."

The Pentagon reported on Friday that Wagner was not playing a significant role at the moment in the Ukraine war, where Prigozhin's troops once served as a driving force behind Russia's invasion. Putin told Russian newspaper Kommersant on Thursday that Prigozhin had rejected his offer to keep his mercenaries fighting in Ukraine, and the Russian president told the outlet that the private military company "does not exist."

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry via email on Friday for comment.