Breaking--Belarus' President Lukashenko Announces Successful Negotiations w/Progozhin

TASS News Agency Reports a Deal Struck be Belarus, Wagner troops returning to base, and all is quiet again on the home front

Little time, things are moving quite fast; source, machine translation w/slight editing for clarity, emphases, and bottom lines mine.

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The press service of the Belarusian president said a favourable and acceptable way of handling the situation with security guarantees for the PMC fighters had been worked out

MINSK, June 24. /TASS/. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko held talks with the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and developed an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This was reported by the press service of the head of Belarus. From the press release:

This morning, Russian President Vladimir Putin briefed his Belarusian counterpart on the situation in southern Russia with the private military company Wagner. The heads of state agreed on joint actions. As a follow-up to the agreement the Belarusian president, having further clarified the situation through his own channels, and in coordination with the Russian president, held talks with the head of the PMC Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The press service added that the result of the negotiations was an agreement ‘on the impossibilty of unleashing a bloodbath on the territory of Russia’.

The talks between Lukashenko and Prigozhin began after Russian President Vladimir Putin briefed his Belarusian counterpart on the situation in southern Russia, and lasted all day. More from the press release:

Yevgeny Prigozhin accepted President Alexander Lukashenko’s proposal to halt the movement of Wagner’s armed men on Russian territory and agreed to further steps to de-escalate tensions.

At the moment there is an absolutely beneficial and acceptable option of resolving the situation on the table, with security guarantees for the fighters of the Wagner PMC.

On the Insurgency

On the evening of June 23, several audio recordings were posted in the Telegram channel of Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner PMC. In particular, he claimed that his units had allegedly been hit and blamed the country’s military leadership. In connection with these statements, the Russian Federal Security Bureau [Russia’s FBI] opened a criminal case for calling for an armed insurgency. The Defence Ministry called the information about the alleged strikes on the ‘rear areas of the Wagner PMCs’ false. The Public Relations Centre of the Russian Federal Security Bureau called on the fighters of the private military company not to follow the orders of Prigozhin and take measures to detain him.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his address to the citizens, called the actions of the Wagner PMC structures an armed insurgency and betrayal, assuring that measures against the insurgents will be tough. In turn, the speaker of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, noted that the deputies of the State Duma, representing the interests of Russian citizens, were in favour of consolidation of forces and supported the President of the country, Vladimir Putin.

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Bottom Lines

Whatever Mr. Prigozhin’s initial thoughts, it is clear now that his actions, while triggering teenage excitements in the West, have not caused much more than a tempest in a teapot, if that at-all.

Mr. Putin is still in the Kremlin, there was no bloodshed in Russia (proper), and the entire affair took some 24-36 hours to resolve. It doesn’t even look like changes in the MoD will occur (at least not right away).

I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Prigozhin will soon leave Russia, have an accident, or ‘disappears’ somewhere. If there’s one thing Mr. Putin is quite known for, it’s his patience for hearing people out. Just watch any of his annual press extravaganzas or the more or less regular interactions with regular people.

Treason, however, which is what Mr. Putin has said this was, is something else entirely. I expect the Wagner Group to be at least renamed, if not disbanded or absorbed into the Russian army. They will get a new chief over the weekend, irrespective of the Wagner Group’s long-term future.

As also reported by Swiss state broadcaster SRF earlier (i.e., before the above announcement), it looks quite plausible that Mr. Prigozhin’s aims had been to effect change at the head of the MoD (my translation):

If Prigozhin hopes to rally a majority of Russians behind him with his ‘march of justice’ against the army leadership, he has miscalculated. The past months have clearly shown that most people in Russia take the view that the war against Ukraine has nothing to do with them.

It looks as if Mr. Prigozhin over-estimated his popularity while he under-estimated the resilience of the Russian gov’t. It looks less like a farce and more like an act of desperation.

Perhaps it was coordinated with Ukraine/NATO—maybe, this was to happen once Ukraine’s counter-offensive broke the Russian lines, as suggested by Andrey Martyanov, but I don’t think so.

Ukraine’s assault was failing (badly), and even if there was such an arrangement between Mr. Prigozhin and Kyiv/NATO, there was no objective need, no less opportunity, of such an insurgency succeeding.

Much ado about nothing is perhaps a bit too harsh, but not too much.

I suspect that this entire episode had little, if any, influence on whatever is going on in Ukraine.

One last notion to consider: will this episode overshadow ‘something big’ in Ukraine? Perhaps, and time will tell.