Less than 24 hours after the mutiny began, it was over.
As the rebelling Wagner column bore down on Moscow, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko brokered a deal under which Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to drop criminal charges against the mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and allow him to seek asylum in Belarus. The departing Wagner troops were given a heroes’ send-off by some residents of Rostov-on-Don – the southern Russian town they had taken control over without firing a shot earlier in the day.
