Crowds cheer Wagner troops leaving Rostov-on-Don after Yevgeny Prigozhin calls off Russia uprising

Wagner group fighters were cheered by the public as they withdrew from the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don overnight and headed back to their field camps – but their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has not yet appeared in Belarus.

The mercenary group’s chief reached a deal with the Kremlin after an extraordinary sequence of events which saw his troops claim Russian cities Rostov-on-Don and Voronezh, home to Russian nuclear weapons, and then begin their march on Moscow.

The brief revolt was documented by audio and video updates from Prigozhin but he appears to have gone silent since agreeing to turn back from Moscow.

Under the deal announced on Saturday by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Prigozhin will go to neighbouring Belarus, which has supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and charges against him of mounting an armed rebellion will be dropped.

Although the Wagner fighters have left Rostov-on-Don, according to the regional governor, Prigozhin has not yet arrived in Belarus.

Videos posted on Russian messaging app channels from Rostov-on-Don showed people cheering Wagner troops as they departed, some people even appeared to run to shake hands with Prigozhin who was riding in an SUV.

Chechen special forces deployed to Russia’s Rostov region to resist the Wagner advance withdrew on Sunday, according to the TASS news agency, and all transport restrictions in the region have now been lifted.

Questions have also been raised over the whereabouts of the Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu, the man Prigozhin wanted removed from office.

The Wagner leader has been heavily critical of both Mr Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff, in recent months and called for them to be handed over to the group on Saturday.

Asked about any changes of staff in the defence ministry following the deal last night, a Kremlin spokesman said they were the “sole prerogative” of President Putin and it was “unlikely that these topics could have been discussed”.

It comes after one of the greatest challenges to Putin in more than two decades in power.

Wagner Group soldiers, under the command of Prigozhin, moved unimpeded into the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and advanced to within 120 miles of Moscow.

The Russian military had to scramble to defend the capital, ripping up roads.

Putin had vowed to punish those behind the uprising, led by his onetime protégé, calling the rebellion a “betrayal” and “treason.”

But a last-minute peace deal, brokered by Belarus’ president Alexander Lukashenko, brought the uprising to an end.

And the Kremlin said charges against Prigozhin and his mercenary group will be dropped to avoid “bloodshed” and the group leader would move to Belarus.

The government also said it would not prosecute Wagner fighters who took part, while those who did not join in were to be offered contracts by the Defence Ministry.

Prigozhin said: “During this time, we have not shed a single drop of the blood of our fighters.

“Now the moment has come when blood could be shed, therefore, realising all the responsibility for the fact that Russian blood will be shed on one of the sides, we turn our columns around and return in the opposite direction to the field camps, according to the plan.”

However, the events have left serious questions about Putin’s grip on power.

“Putin has been diminished for all time by this affair,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst told broadcaster CNN.

While the US-based think tank Institute for the Study of War said the Kremlin “faces a deeply unstable equilibrium” after the deal to end the rebellion by the Wagner Group.

It said the Lukashenko-negotiated deal “is a short-term fix, not a long-term solution, and Prigozhin’s rebellion exposed severe weaknesses” in the Kremlin and the Russian Defense Ministry.

Wagner troops have played a crucial role in the Ukraine war, capturing the eastern city of Bakhmut, an area where the bloodiest and longest battles have taken place.

But Prigozhin has been increasingly critical of Russian military brass, accusing it of incompetence and of starving his troops of munitions.

Announcing the rebellion, he accused Russian forces of targeting the Wagner camps in Ukraine with rockets, helicopter gunships and artillery.

He alleged that General Gerasimov ordered the attacks following a meeting with Shoigu in which they decided to destroy the military contractor.

The Defense Ministry denied attacking the camps.

However, the US had intelligence Prigozhin had been building up his forces near the border with Russia for some time.

It was claimed intelligence officials briefed congressional leaders earlier this week over Wagner movements and a build-up of equipment near Russia.

One possible motivation for the rebellion was the Russian Defence Ministry’s demand, which Putin backed, that private companies sign contracts with it by 1 July. Prigozhin had refused to do it.

Speaking during his nightly video address on Saturday, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said: “Today the world saw that the masters of Russia do not control anything. Nothing at all. Just complete chaos.”

And Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was reported to have said: “Any chaos behind the enemy lines works in our interests.”