"Putin was nowhere to be found": Media find out how negotiations with Prigozhin went

On the day of his "rebellion", 24 June, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner private military company, tried to contact Russian President Vladimir Putin, but the latter refused to be in touch and later did not participate in the negotiations, either.

Source: Meduza, Latvia-based Russian independent news outlet, referring to sources close to the Kremlin and the Russian government 

Details: According to a Meduza source close to the Kremlin, the authorities have been negotiating with Prigozhin in one form or another since the evening of 23 June, when he announced the start of his "justice march".

"The military leadership, members of the presidential administration, the leadership of the Rosgvardia (National Guard of Russia – ed.) and officials close to him tried to communicate with him (Prigozhin). But his actions were such that it is not very clear what to talk about," the source said.

At the same time, according to Meduza's sources close to the Russian presidential administration, around the middle of the day on 24 June, Prigozhin began trying to contact the Kremlin himself – and allegedly even "tried to call Putin, but the president did not want to talk to him".

According to Meduza's sources close to the Kremlin and the Russian government, Prigozhin most likely realised that he had "overstepped" and that "the prospects for his convoys were vague". By that time, the mercenaries were no longer far from the Oka River, where the Russian army and Rosgvardia decided to build the first line of defence against the Wagnerites.

Seeing Prigozhin's changed mood, the Kremlin allegedly decided not to go for a "blood bath", according to Meduza's interlocutors. The sources have said that the final negotiations were conducted by a large group of officials, including Anton Vayno, the head of the presidential administration, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, and Boris Gryzlov, the Russian ambassador to Belarus.

The frontman of this group was self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko. According to a source close to the Kremlin, Prigozhin insisted that the talks be attended by "top officials". And given Putin's reluctance to contact Prigozhin, the negotiators did not have many options.

"Prigozhin needed a worthy confidant to get out of the game [while saving his own face]. Lukashenko was the one to do it. He loves PR and understands the benefits – that's why he agreed," says the Meduza source.

In this source’s opinion, the "benefit" for Lukashenko is obvious: publicly, he has become the man who "saved Russia from civil war at most, and at least from a lot of blood."

Meduza's sources close to the Kremlin and the Russian government agreed that Prigozhin had lost as a result of his radical speech: "He was pushed out of Russia. The president does not forgive this". According to them, the parties will still "discuss" the details of the agreement regarding Prigozhin's new position, but "he will not have the same influence and resources".

At the same time, the source, who is close to the Kremlin, did not rule out that the rebellion could result in personnel changes in the leadership of the Defence Ministry: "But not at Prigozhin's request, rather because of the defence ministry's self-dismission."

Nonetheless, neither Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu nor Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff, have said a word about Prigozhin's rebellion. It is also unknown where they have been all this time.

A Meduza source close to the government doubts that any personnel decisions regarding the Russian Defence Ministry will be made in the near future: "Putin almost never goes along with the circumstances and does not bend under pressure."

Sources close to the Kremlin, however, acknowledge that the rebellion has weakened Putin's position.

Quote from the source: "He couldn't go to Prigozhin, but he was nowhere to be found yesterday [after his speech]. He's the 'king', the 'big cheese', but f**k, if you need to intervene, don't make Lukashenko shine for you and make the secret forces negotiate for you."

More details: On the day Prigozhin moved his army towards Moscow, Putin was working on documents in the Kremlin, according to his spokesman Dmitry Peskov. At the same time, Putin's plane, equipped with software for remote control over armed forces, took off from Moscow on the afternoon of 24 June and disappeared from radar near Tver, as the outlet Vazhnye Istorii (Important Stories) reported, citing data from the Flightradar service.

According to one of Meduza's sources close to the presidential administration, it will now be more difficult for Putin to "assemble the vertical of power" – and there will be more attempts to "rebuild the system" by "Russian elites".

Background:

• On the evening of 23 June, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that the regular Russian army had launched a missile strike on the Wagner mercenaries’ rear camps. He therefore deployed 25,000 of his mercenaries "to restore justice".
• Prigozhin claimed that his forces had taken control of military facilities in Rostov-on-Don, including the air base, and were heading "to Moscow" and that his soldiers had shot down three Russian helicopters. Wagner mercenaries also seized military facilities in the Russian city of Voronezh.
• In an emergency address on 24 June, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was "fighting for survival" and that attempts were being made to "organise a rebellion" in the country.
• On the afternoon of 24 June, Russian media reported that the Office of the President of the Russian Federation anticipated that Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group fighters were likely to reach Moscow’s outskirts in the next few hours, with fighting expected near Russia’s capital. Ukrainian intelligence had information that Putin had urgently left Moscow for his residence in Valdai. Wagnerites were spotted 400 kilometres from Moscow. 
• On Saturday evening, after a conversation with self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, Prigozhin said that his mercenaries were turning their convoys around and heading in the opposite direction to the field camps. Later, it became known that the criminal case against Prigozhin would be closed, and he would "go to Belarus".

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