A Treasury press release warned at the time that anyone who provides landing rights or other services to the jet “run the risk of facilitating or supporting Prigozhin’s nefarious activities and may also be subject to future sanctions.”
Also on Tuesday, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko underlined how seriously the Wagner rebellion had been taken in the country, saying his military had been placed in “full combat readiness” in response.
“My position is: If Russia collapses, we will remain under the rubble, we will all die,” Lukashenko, Putin’s closest ally in Europe who claimed to have helped broker the deal that ended the armed mutiny, told journalist in Minsk.
Despite earlier reports that a criminal case against Prigozhin was still open, the state-owned RIA news agency said that the case was now closed because “the participants had ceased actions directly aimed at committing the crime.”
The immediate future for Prigozhin has been a subject of much debate after he called off what he later called a “march of justice” as his fighters headed toward Moscow, the Russian capital, on Saturday.
By the time they retreated the rebels had already taken the major city of Rostov-on-Don and had shaken Putin’s authority and sowed doubt among millions of Russians already weary from 15 months of war in Ukraine.
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In a televised address Monday, Putin angrily called the rebels “traitors” who played into the hands of those who wanted to see the country “drowned in a bloody domestic strife.”
Prigozhin claimed that he acted not to topple Putin’s regime but to protect Wagner from being destroyed by the Russian defense ministry.
“Experienced fighters, experienced commanders will be simply ‘smeared’ and will basically be used as meat,” he said, using Russian slang for “destroyed,” adding: “We did not have the goal of toppling the existing regime and legitimately-elected government.”
Prigozhin also repeated allegations that nearly 30 mercenaries had been killed in Ukraine when a Wagner unit was fired on by the Russian military, which served as a “trigger” for the revolt.
This is a developing story, check back here for updates soon.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
