Vladimir Putin has said that he sought and failed to have Yevgeny Prigozhin replaced as the leader of Wagner’s fighters in Ukraine after the mercenary chief rebuffed his proposal during a meeting at the Kremlin this month.
Putin’s version of events, which appeared in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper, was a surprise admission that the Russian president was still negotiating a takeover of the Wagner mercenary group.
Analysts have suggested that last month’s short-lived Wagner rebellion exposed Putin’s weakness and inability to manage the conflicts among the various power players in his regime.
On Friday, Belarusian state media broadcast footage it said showed that Wagner instructors had begun to arrive in Belarus as part of an exile deal reached with the Kremlin after the aborted mutiny.
Putin told the columnist Andrei Kolesnikov that he met Prigozhin and 35 Wagner commanders at the Kremlin after the mutiny and sought to negotiate terms for the mercenary group’s continued participation in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
During the meeting, Putin said he offered Prigozhin the option to allow Wagner fighters to continue to serve in Ukraine under the leadership of their battlefield commander, Andrey Trochev.
“All of them could gather in one place and continue to serve,” Putin told Kolesnikov, who has covered the Kremlin leader for several decades. “And nothing would change for them. They would be led by the same person who had been their actual commander this entire time.”
The offer met with some support from the Wagner commanders, Putin said. “A lot of them nodded their heads when I said this. But Prigozhin, who was sitting in front of them and didn’t see [their reaction], said: ‘No, the guys won’t agree with that decision.’”
The interview appears to be part of a broader effort by the Kremlin to win the loyalty of the Wagner rank and file, even while seeking to discredit Prigozhin by leaking sensitive and embarrassing information about him.
During the interview, Putin also said Wagner did not exist, citing Russian legislation outlawing private military companies and putting its future in doubt.
Dara Massicot, a senior policy researcher at Rand, a US thinktank, who specialises in Russian military strategy, said Putin’s version of events signalled he could outlaw Wagner at any moment while seeking to drive a wedge between Prigozhin and his fighters.
“He is signalling: ‘I am going to separate Prigozhin from this tool, Wagner and the Wagner fighters, which I still need,” she said. “I still need that tool. I don’t need the man as much.”
Yet it was surprising for Putin to make public the failed negotiations with Prigozhin, even as he sought to reprise his role as the “godfather” of various power interests in Russia.
“I don’t think this makes him look as strong as he thinks it does,” said Massicot, who described the supposed meeting as “theatre” after the failed rebellion. “This is messy.”
Abbas Gallyamov, a political consultant and a former speechwriter to Putin, said the fact the two met “showed that Putin was willing to normalise the relationship with Prigozhin”.
“Both sides still need each other,” Gallyamov said, but added that Putin’s remarks to Kommersant and the media campaign against Prigozhin suggested that the two sides “didn’t find common ground”.
Kremlin-controlled television channels have continued to broadcast news reports detailing Prigozhin’s business interests and claims that he was both ineffective and corrupt. The Russian military claimed it had recovered equipment, including some it said was unused despite Prigozhin’s complaints that his fighters were systematically undersupplied.
Embarrassing photographs of Prigozhin were also leaked to pro-war Telegram channels after raids on his residence and Wagner offices. Some showed him in disguise, wearing fake beards and hairpieces, leading to ridicule of the mercenary chief.
On Friday, a leaked image showed Prigozhin sitting in his underwear on a bunk in a field tent decorated with a Wagner insignia. The date of the image could not immediately be confirmed, and it was not known whether Prigozhin was in Belarus.
On the same day, Belarusian state television also claimed that the first Wagner fighters had arrived to a military camp erected in the village of Asipovichi. The mercenaries were filmed training local defence forces in weapons and tactics in the first purported sighting of the Wagner fighters in Belarus since the rebellion. The Belarusian defence ministry said Wagner fighters were “serving as instructors in a number of military disciplines”.
The US has said Wagner has largely been sidelined in Ukraine, a trend that began after the group announced drawdown in May following key fighting for the city of Bakhmut.
On Thursday, the Pentagon press secretary, Pat Ryder, said: “At this stage, we do not see Wagner forces participating in any significant capacity in support of combat operations in Ukraine.”
But Ryder added that the majority of Wagner’s fighters had remained in Russian-occupied Ukraine, where they were stationed before the rebellion.
Along with Prigozhin’s lucrative operations in Africa, his Concord Group’s contracts to supply other Russian military bases abroad could be a valuable prize for the Kremlin if they can be wrested from his control.
Galyamov said: “If Putin and Prigozhin put aside their emotions, rationally both players would prefer to make peace so that Russia could use the Wagner troops in Ukraine. Both sides need each other. For Putin the higher goal is the war in Ukraine, while Prigozhin knows that without the president his position is very shaky.”
