Lukashenko: Prigozhin’s in Russia — and his mercenaries haven’t arrived in Belarus

By this time, Yevgeny Prigozhin should have arrived in Minsk, and thousands of his Wagner Group mercenaries in Belarussian bases. Nearly two weeks have passed since the warlord lost his nerve on the road to Moscow and cut a deal with Vladimir Putin to go into exile. Given that it took Prigozhin less than two days to travel from Bakhmut to Rostov and then Voronezh, the country drive to Minsk should have taken only a few days on the scenic route. (‘See the glow around Chernobyl as you drive with your windows rolled up!’)

Instead, Alexander Lukashenko today announced that Prigozhin walks the streets of St. Petersburg a free man. Lukashenko assured the media that he has first-hand knowledge of this, having called him this very day on the phone. And his forces are nowhere to be found:

Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko mediated a deal to end Prigozhin’s revolt — the most serious challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule — that was to see the mercenary head into Belarusian exile.

“As far as Prigozhin is concerned, he is in Saint Petersburg… He is not in Belarus,” Lukashenko, who has ruled isolated Belarus for nearly three decades, told reporters from foreign media outlets in Minsk. …

Lukashenko said that members of Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenary group have not established a base in Belarus yet, despite an offer from the Kremlin for those who took part in the failed mutiny to do so.

“At the moment the question of their transfer and set-up has not been decided,” Lukashenko said.

Say what? The AFP report makes it sound as though Lukashenko meant that Prigozhin never came to Belarus at all. Reuters’ report notes that Lukashenko had announced on June 27 that Prigozhin had arrived, but now he’s gone — and might even be in Moscow, for all Lukashenko knows:

Lukashenko said on June 27 that Yevgeny Prigozhin had arrived in Belarus as part of the deal that defused the crisis, which had seen the Wagner fighters briefly capture the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and then march towards Moscow.

But Lukashenko, who brokered the deal, said on Thursday that Prigozhin was now in St Petersburg, Russia’s second city, or may have moved on to Moscow.

“He is not on the territory of Belarus,” Lukashenko told a press conference in Minsk.

I find this difficult to believe, for lots of reasons.

Let’s assume Lukashenko is telling the truth for a moment. If I had double-crossed Vladimir Putin and led an armed rebellion against him, Minsk wouldn’t be far enough away to make me feel safe. London wouldn’t be far enough away, as Sergei Skripal found out the hard way. Omaha might not be far enough away. Needless to say, the last place other than Moscow itself where Prigozhin should feel safe to walk the streets as a free man, as Lukashenko claimed today, would be St. Petersburg.

As for Putin, assuming this deal is on the level, the last concession he would allow would be for Wagner Group mercenaries to just disappear into the woodwork. The deal that Lukashenko brokered was suspiciously generous enough, allowing those who participated in the rebellion to follow Prigozhin into exile. Given the nature of these mercenaries and their rebellious instincts, Putin couldn’t just allow them to melt away, where they could re-form at some point into yet another threat.

At this juncture, there appears to be two options. Either everyone involved is a complete idiot, or there’s something else happening in Russia. And possibly a third: There’s something else happening in Russia, and everyone involved is still a complete idiot. Given the decision to invade Ukraine and to allow Prigozhin to run and control a private army in a war, it’s hard to dismiss Option 3.

What could be up? A report from Newsweek suggests that Putin has decided to militarize his home guard into a regime army:

Nearly two weeks on, despite ample remaining unknowns, Putin’s government has taken at least one very visible, concrete step aimed at scaring off any copycat performance of Wagner’s armed mutiny.

“Rosgvardiya, the Russian National Guard group that reports directly to the president, was already a paramilitary organization,” Barros explained. “After June 24, it was announced that they will now be receiving unspecified forms of heavy weaponry, meaning that, as a result of Prigozhin’s march, we could soon see Vladimir Putin’s domestic protection service driving around in main battle tanks.”

“The Kremlin is doing whatever it can to prevent this kind of threat from repeating itself,” he added.

It’s not doing whatever it can if Prigozhin is enjoying the street scene in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Put bluntly, it matters what happens to those the leader decries as traitors. Allowing Prigozhin to go into exile made Putin look weak enough, but having him enjoy life in the country’s second most important city is a sign of impotence. That kind of signal encourages others to challenge for power in a thugocracy like Putin’s Russia.

No one knows that better than Putin, though. So why would he let Prigozhin this far off the hook? There are hypotheticals that could explain part of this, but none of them make much sense:

• The rebellion was a false-flag operation intended to smoke out other rebellious elements in Russia
• Putin was actually behind Prigozhin’s push to eliminate Shoigu’s power
• The whole thing was a double-head-fake to get Wagner Group under Kremlin control for a new offensive in Ukraine

Add your own theories in the comments, but here are a few counterpoints:

• You don’t launch a rebellion to smoke out other rebellious elements, lest you encourage a popular uprising that results in an actual coup
• Putin could fire Shoigu tomorrow if he likes. Why would he need Prigozhin to get rid of Shoigu?
• That one might make sense if it didn’t involve confusing the hell out of the forces in question, seizing Rostov for a time, and if there was any chance at all that Wagner could do what the intact Russian Army couldn’t in northern Ukraine in the opening of the war

There is one last option: Lukashenko’s lying about Prigozhin’s status. Putin might have already assassinated him or have him under arrest. That’s the only option that makes sense and doesn’t make everyone involved — including Lukashenko — look like a complete idiot. But even then, what sense does it make to give the impression that a rebel is living scot-free and thumbing his nose at Putin? It would be far better for Putin to produce a chained-up Prigozhin for the cameras — and even better if he showed up as a corpse wherever he may be at the moment. Putin’s certainly familiar with that calculation, after all.