Three weeks after a brief uprising in Russia by the Wagner mercenary group, President Vladimir V. Putin said its troops could continue fighting, but without their controversial leader, while the Belarusian government said that some Wagner warriors were there, training its forces.
The future of Wagner and its crew, which played a key role in Mr. Putin’s war against Ukraine, remains in doubt, part of the misunderstanding and turmoil in Russia’s military hierarchy that has erupted in public since the rebellion. But the Russian leader has made it clear that he intends to sideline Wagner’s boss, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, who led the uprising.
Mr. Putin, at an interview published late Thursday, gave an account of a three-hour meeting in the Kremlin, just days after the uprising, with Mr. Prigozhin and his top commanders. Mr. Putin, who has worked hard since the uprising to demonstrate his implacable control over state affairs, portrayed himself in the interview as a coolheaded arbiter who rose above the chaos, and described the -rebellion as a small internal dispute that he resolved.
He said he praised the Wagner fighters for their military achievements, and suggested that another Wagner leader replace Mr. Prigozhin, according to Kommersant, a Russian business daily, along with a journalist from state television, conducted an interview. He said he told Wagner’s troops that he was “sorry that they appeared to be dragged” into the uprising, apparently blaming Mr. Prigozhin.
“I outlined possible paths for their future military service, including combat,” Mr. Putin said. “Many nodded as I spoke,” he added, but Mr. Prigozhin, who he said was sitting in the front and did not see the nod, responded that “the men do not agree with such a decision.”
The government ordered that Wagner troops who wished to continue fighting sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense, effectively becoming part of the regular Russian military, which Mr. Prigozhin strongly protested. But Mr. Putin’s latest comments appear to have left open the possibility that Wagner units could continue.
Mr. wanted Putin draws a sharp distinction between Wagner’s fighters, whose experience and expertise he can exploit, and the mercenary leader he now sees as reckless and untrustworthy, according to Tatiana Stanovaya, a nonresident scholar at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“They want to keep the core of Wagner but under different leadership, one that is clearly more loyal, and even controlled,” Ms. Stanovaya in a telephone interview.
“That meeting was a sign of reconciliation; not in the sense that the conflict is over, but in the sense that there are rules of the game — you have to follow them,” she added.
A Kremlin spokesman first disclosed the meeting earlier this week, saying that Wagner commanders had expressed their concerns — a remarkable admission considering that in recent days, Mr. Putin denounced the leaders of the uprising as traitors.
President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, who helped end Wagner’s uprising on June 24, said soon after that his country would welcome its fighters, and the Belarusian military quickly built tent accommodation for thousands of troops at a disused base nine miles from the town of Asipovichy, about 50 miles southeast of the capital, Minsk. But last week, Mr. Lukashenko said there were no Wagner troops in Belarus yet, and the military invited foreign journalists to the camp to show it was empty.
On Friday, however, the Belarusian defense ministry said in a statement that Wagner soldiers were training members of a Belarusian military force in defense and battlefield tactics. A state television channel broadcast video of what its correspondent said was training of Wagner fighters “at a training base near Asipovichy,” but affiliates of the troops in the video could not be independently verified. A defense ministry spokesman confirmed that at least part of the video was shot at the same site as the new tent camp.
Mr. Lukashenko, who is increasingly dependent on and subordinate to Mr. Putin, has made it clear that he wants to have an experienced fighting force like Wagner at his disposal. In late June, in comments shown on state television, he urged his defense minister, Viktor Khrenin, to make the most of the opportunity.
“They will tell you about the weapons – which worked well, which didn’t,” Mr. Lukashenko said. “And tactics, and weapons, and how to attack, how to defend. It is priceless.”
said Mr. Prigozhin that his rebellion was not aimed at overthrowing Mr. Putin, but by removing the military leaders in Moscow whom he has for months denounced as incompetent over the bad words the president has sanctioned. After sending an armored column rolling towards the capital, he halted their advance after receiving assurances that he and Wagner’s troops would not be punished.
The Pentagon said Thursday that Wagner troops are no longer believed to be fighting in a significant capacity in Ukraine. And the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that the Wagner fighters had given up much of their weapons and equipment.
Since the mercenaries appear to be inactive and largely disarmed, the Kremlin is making a clear attempt to downplay the role of their unruly leader. The media empire of Mr. Prigozhin, including several news websites, was closed, and his St. Petersburg mansion has become a regular feature of Russian state television, which portrays its owner as a petty and immoral thug who hoards money, weapons, passports and possibly drugs.
There were also signs of a shake-up in the grip of the military establishment that Mr. Prigozhin lamented. Gen. Sergei V. Surovikin, head of the Russian air force and former head of forces in Ukraine, considered an ally of Prigozhin, reportedly knew of the uprising in advance and has not been seen in public since; a top lawmaker said this week that the general was “resting.”
On Wednesday night, a recording was made public about Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov accused his superiors of undermining the war effort with dishonesty, and told his troops that he had been removed from command of a Russian army in Ukraine for daring to speak the truth about the mishandling of the war. . Other commanders are said to have been interrogated or detained, at least briefly.
So far the chaos does not appear to have helped Ukrainian forces as they battle to regain territory in a slow-moving counteroffensive that began in early June.
Russia has launched several waves of attack drones on Ukrainian cities in recent days, including overnight into Friday morning, and has continued to bombard cities within artillery range. Ukrainian authorities said on Friday that they had shot down 16 of 17 drones overnight.
Mr. Putin identified as a possible new Wagner leader a man known as “Sedoi,” or “Gray-haired,” who the president said had been the de facto commander of Wagner’s troops since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year . Sanctions in the European Union documentsWagner-linked bloggersand Russian media outlets Sedoi was identified as Andrei N. Troshev, a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya. The penalty documents referred to to Mr. Troshev as a “founding member” and “executive director” of Wagner.
Mr. Putin has maintained an ambiguous stance on Wagner’s future, apparently leaving his options open. Days after the coup, he said Russia paid Wagner nearly $1 billion a year, but in the interview reported by Kommersant, he said Wagner was “nothing,” even legally.
“We have no law on private military organizations,” Mr. Putin said. “There is no such legal entity.”
Valerie Hopkins contributed reporting.