A domestic security crisis threatening the government of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin appeared to ease late Saturday, when a mercenary tycoon, whose forces seized critical facilities in southern Russia and began an armed march on Moscow, stopping abruptly after cutting a deal that allowed him and his fighters to escape prosecution.
The mercenary leader, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, fearlessly took control of the Southern Military District headquarters in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and put his fighters and tanks on the streets, demanding changes in the Russian military leadership, said. his Wagner private military company made it to within 200 kilometers (about 124 miles) of Moscow, the capital, without injuring any of its fighters.
But he said the group had reached a point where Russian blood was about to be spilled “on one side.” And out of a sense of responsibility, he would turn his forces back and send them back to their camps in the field.
Many questions remained unanswered as the day ended in Moscow, but the outlines of a deal negotiated by Mr. Prigozhin began to focus. Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus and a close ally of Putin, brokered the deal.
Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters that under the deal, Mr. Prigozhin will go to Belarus, and the criminal case opened against him for organizing an armed insurrection will be dropped.
Wagner fighters who did not participate in the uprising will be given the option of signing contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry, Mr. Peskov said, and others will avoid prosecution, considering their “heroic acts at the front.”
“There is a higher goal – to avoid bloodshed, to avoid internal confrontation, to avoid clashes with unpredictable consequences,” said Mr. Peskov. “It is in the name of these goals that Lukashenko’s mediation efforts have been realized, and President Putin has made the corresponding decisions.”
Regarding the requests of Mr. Prigozhin to end the “disgrace” of the Russian military leadership, the Kremlin spokesman said that such personnel decisions are the exclusive domain of the Russian commander-in-chief and cannot be subject to such negotiations.
The Kremlin’s announcement capped a grim day that began with Mr. Prigozhin in his wanton usurpation of military offices. It continued with an emergency national televised address by Mr. Putin, where the Russian leader promised to stop the armed mutiny and mocked the Wagner fighters as traitors who stabbed mother earth in the back.
Russia, Mr. Putin warned, was in danger of relapsing into a tragedy similar to the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922, when “Russians killed Russians and brothers killed the brothers.”
“We will not allow this to happen again,” he said. “We will protect our people and our state from any threats, including internal treason.”
The Russian leader, who did not mention Mr. Prigozhin by name in his recorded remarks, said “inflated ambitions and personal interests” had led to the betrayal, and he promised the harshest punishment for anyone who “chose the way of treachery.”
He admitted that the situation in Rostov-on-Don, a city of about 1.1 million people, is difficult, saying: “In fact, the work of civil and military institutions is blocked.”
Wagner’s dramatic moves – that for years Mr. Putin has been doing Mr. Putin’s shadowy geopolitical bidding in foreign countries and suffered heavy losses on the battlefield in Ukraine before set its sights on Russia itself — representing the biggest domestic blowback Mr. Putin has faced since launching his war in Ukraine last year.
For a while, the group of fighters posed one of the most serious threats to the leadership of the Russian president since he took power more than 23 years ago, and showed the danger posed by armed formations operating abroad. in government control.
A series of events that unfolded in less than 24 hours plunged a country already struggling to fight Ukraine into a full-blown domestic crisis, putting a Russian president which sought to suppress domestic opposition against a former prisoner and food vendor. mercenary boss, who once helped a beleaguered Russia on the battlefield but eventually became a political liability for the Kremlin.
By mid-day on Saturday, with Mr. Prigozhin apparently in control of central Rostov-on-Don and initially refusing to back down, there were relatively few ways out of the crisis that didn’t involve clashes. inside Russia or danger. a great loss of life.
Officials in the region along the major M-4 highway linking Rostov-on-Don to Moscow, about 600 miles to the north, said convoys of military equipment were barreling north. on the highway and urged local residents to stay away.
Videos obtained by The New York Times show signs of active fighting along a highway south of the city of Voronezh, including helicopters and a wrecked truck on the side of the road, after reports that the Wagner fighters entered the Voronezh region, which is between Rostov and Moscow. .
“We block the city of Rostov and go to Moscow,” said Mr. Prigozhin was in the courtyard of the military headquarters earlier in the day.
The Russian Defense Ministry, speaking directly to the Wagner fighters in a statement, told them that they had been deceived by the “criminal adventure” of Mr. Prigozhin and ensure safety when they contact the authorities.
Perhaps the most shocking scene of the day came when footage emerged of Mr. Prigozhin in control of the headquarters of the Southern Military District, where he appeared with two high-ranking Russian military officers surrounded by Wagner’s guards.
In the video, Mr. Prigozhin to meet with the highest military officer in Russia, Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, and the country’s defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, to end what he described as a “disgrace.”
“We came here,” said Mr. Prigozhin. “We want the chief of general staff and Shoigu. As long as they are not here, we will stay here.”
Throughout the video, Mr. Prigozhin sat casually between two uncomfortable Russian officials – a deputy defense minister, Col. gen. Yunus-bek Yevkurov, and a deputy military intelligence chief, Lt. gen. Vladimir Alekseyev – as he criticized the Russian military. bad leadership in Ukraine.
General Yevkurov asked Mr. Prigozhin to release regular soldiers from the headquarters of the military district. “Absolutely not,” replied Mr. Prigozhin, before mocking the general for killing fighters by “throwing them into a meat grinder” in Ukraine “without any bullets, any thought or even what plan.”
Mr. Prigozhin criticized the general for showing disrespect by referring to him using the informal “you” in Russian, and said that if the Russian military spoke to his group in a normal tone, he would not have to come. .
General Yevkurov later asked whether Mr. Prigozhin saw the actions he took as justified. “They are right,” said Mr. Prigozhin. “We saved Russia.”
At the end of the day, the Wagner fighters maneuvered a tank from where they parked it between the gates of the Rostov-on-Don circus, and Mr. Prigozhin was photographed waving goodbye from the window of a car.
The situation created by Mr. Prigozhin at first seems like a dramatic denouement for a man who spent years in prison during the Soviet era but rose to wealth after making inroads with Mr. Putin in St. Petersburg in the 1990s and won the government catering contract.
Last year, he was thrust into the spotlight as Wagner took on a larger role in prosecuting Moscow’s struggling war effort in Ukraine, eventually seizing control of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut amid fierce protests. loss.
The situation led to a fierce rivalry between Mr. Prigozhin and the top leaders of the Russian military exploded in public as he released videos to the public full of jabs attacking them for incompetence.
The fight between the forces of Mr. Prigozhin and the Russian military for months appeared impossible, with the expectation that Mr. Putin will finally act to prevent the split. But then, nothing happened.
In audio recordings released Friday night, Mr. Prigozhin suggested that Moscow had finally sided with the Russian military and accused the Defense Ministry of launching an attack against a Wagner camp in Ukraine, an accusation which was publicly denied by the Russian authorities.
A Telegram channel affiliated with Wagner on Saturday accused Mr. Putin of causing civil unrest himself by refusing to send “one or two degenerates into retirement” and siding with “the most prepared of Russian war unit.”
After Mr. Prigozhin withdrew, the Telegram channel, called APWagner, exploded in anger: “I broke my contract.”
It is not clear what Mr. Prigozhin to outmuscle many of Russia’s security services.
As of late Saturday, no units within the Russian military or police appeared to have turned on Wagner, and no prominent Russian officials had expressed open support for the mercenary group. Top officials across Russia have issued comments supporting Mr. Putin, making the Wagner boss appear isolated.
Popular pro-war Russian blogger Mikhail Zvinchuk, who writes on Telegram under the name Rybar, said that while he did not whitewash Mr. speak loudly.”
Mr. Zvinchuk noted that Mr. Putin not only ignored Mr. Prigozhin in his words, but also did not mention the defense minister or the chief of the general staff, “which says a lot.”
Considering that there is some kind of agreement with Mr. Prigozhin, the question of whether there will be consequences for the Russian defense minister and high military officer remains, the blogger added.
Despite one of the most significant threats to Russia’s national security in years, nothing was said all day.
Reporting was contributed by Anton Troyanovski, Anatoly Kurmanaev, Valerie Hopkins and Neil MacFarquhar.
