On Tuesday, an aircraft linked to Russian mercenary head Yevgeny Prigozhin arrived in Belarus from Russia, possibly bringing him to exile three days after he attempted a military rebellion.
Flightradar24 revealed an Embraer Legacy 600 jet with identification numbers matching a plane linked to Prigozhin in U.S. sanctions filings descending near Minsk, Belarus. Prigozhin’s fighters conquered Rostov, a southern Russian city, on Saturday.
On Saturday, Prigozhin announced a deal with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to visit. His whereabouts and proposed banishment were unknown for three days.
He left Rostov in an SUV on Saturday night, smiling and high-fiving witnesses.
On Monday night, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the rebellion leaders had abandoned their motherland without naming Prigozhin.
Putin and Prigozhin indicated Wagner fighters might operate in Belarus, and Lukashenko had consented.
After nearly reaching Moscow, longtime Putin friend and ex-convict Prigozhin announced his fighters had paused their campaign on Saturday to avoid bloodshed.
“We went as a demonstration of protest, not to overthrow the government of the country,” Prigozhin stated in an audio clip.
In his nighttime speech, his first public comment since the mutiny, Putin stated that Russian pilots had died fighting the march on Moscow. He praised Russian patriotism.
Putin said Russia would resist “any blackmail, any attempt to create internal turmoil” from its opponents.
