Mutinous Prigozhin Faces Exile in Belarus but Putin's Grip Slips

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the oftentimes vocal leader of the Wagner mercenary group, may be headed for a life of exile in Belarus after an aborted advance on Moscow, but Saturday's mutiny against the Russian military has rattled the authority of Vladimir Putin, experts have said.

In a matter of hours, Wagner Group units were able to capture military sites in Rostov-on-Don in Russia before advancing north towards the Russian capital, prompting the nation's military to hastily prepare defensive measures.

Following a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, one of the Russian president's few allies over the war in Ukraine, Prigozhin agreed to leave Russia and order his men to return to their bases in Ukraine in exchange for not facing criminal charges over the short-lived rebellion.

"Understanding the responsibility for spilling Russian blood on one of the sides, we are turning back our convoys and going back to field camps, according to the plan," Prigozhin said in a voice memo posted to his Telegram account.

Even though the situation, for the moment, appears to have been diffused, it is the first time Putin has been directly challenged over Russian military failures in Ukraine, by what is seen by some as its most effective fighting force in the war.

Prigozhin's men were attributed with being largely responsible for the capture of Bakhmut—one of the few major Russian territorial gains—and the mercenary oligarch has become increasingly critical of Russia's military leadership in recent months.

Accusations of friendly fire on Wagner Group camps—which Russia denies—appears to have been the final straw for its leader, prompting the so-called "march for justice."

But there are reports that the mercenaries who advanced towards Moscow met little resistance from sympathetic Russian troops, suggesting a growing unrest with Moscow's operational decisions.

As Putin has thrived off of a strongman image—already dented by a slow, attritional war in Ukraine—experts and commentators have viewed Prigozhin's mutiny as a public attack on the president's grip on power.

"Putin has been diminished for all time by this affair," former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, John Herbst, told CNN.

Speaking on Sky News on Sunday, Christopher Steele, a former British military intelligence officer, said Putin "has lost authority and legitimacy within Russia," despite managing "to worm his way out of it for the present."

He added: "To see events unfold in Russia yesterday and the speed with which the situation seemed to spiral out of control must be very concerning for Putin and the people around him."

Around Moscow, checkpoints were erected and troops rushed to the south of the city, according to Russian state media. Crews dug up highways to slow the march, while Sergei Sobyanin, the capital's mayor, declared a "non-working day" and asked residents to stay at home.

While there has yet to be confirmation of Prigozhin arriving in Belarus, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti footage posted to Twitter on Saturday evening shows Prigozhin in the back of a car, appearing to leave Rostov.

It is also unclear whether his fellow Wagner fighters would be joining him in exile.

However, some have warned that Ukraine should keep one eye on Belarus following the deal. On Sunday, Lord Dannatt, a former chief of the British General Staff, told Sky News that Prigozhin's movement to Belarus was "a matter of some concern."

"If he has gone to Belarus and has kept an effective fighting force around him, he then presents a threat again to the Ukrainian flank closest to Kyiv, which is where all this began on February 24 last year," he said.

Ukraine should "watch that flank very carefully and make sure they have got some maneuver units such that they could repel a renewed attack," he added.

In the initial phase of the invasion, a column of tank and infantry units moved towards Kyiv from the Belarusian border. Troops were forced into retreat after tactical failures left the column stranded.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky played up to the view that Putin had lost control of his country, tweeting on Saturday afternoon: "Today, the world saw that the bosses of Russia do not control anything. Nothing at all. Complete chaos." In his nightly video address on Saturday, Zelensky claimed Putin was "obviously very afraid."

Newsweek approached the Ministries of Defense for Russia and Ukraine via email for comment on Sunday.