Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has announced that Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin is back in Russia, despite the oligarch-turned-warlord's widely reported deal with the Kremlin to accept exile in Belarus after his mutiny against the Defense Ministry last month.
The Belarusian dictator had said on June 27 that Prigozhin—who has long been close to Lukashenko—had arrived in his country as part of the deal to end the brief Wagner uprising, in which mercenaries seized the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and even threatened a march on Moscow.
But Reuters reported that Lukashenko said on Thursday: "As for Prigozhin, he's in St Petersburg. He is not on the territory of Belarus."
Newsweek has contacted the Kremlin by email to request comment.
Reports in recent days have suggested that the Wagner chief had been in St. Petersburg and Moscow, as he negotiates with the authorities over the dissolution of commercial interests inside Russia and the return of certain assets—including more than $100 million in cash and gold bars—seized by investigators after the mutiny.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
