Vladimir Putin held secret meetings with the warlord he accused of staging an armed mutiny against his rule – five days later.
Western intelligence sources claimed the gathering took place on July 1 – this was later confirmed by the Kremlin.
The three-hour meeting was attended by 35 people - all the commanders of the detachments and the leadership of Wagner, including Prigozhin, said Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
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But the revelation will be seen as a move highlighting Putin's weakness, according to experts.
It comes after claims that Prigozhin may be tasked with using his armed force to attempt to assassinate Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky – with the Kremlin allegedly telling the mercenary leader to “bring him his head”.
Peskov said: “The president did have such a meeting. He invited 35 people. All squad commanders and the[Wagner] leadership, including Prigozhin.
“The meeting was in the Kremlin on 29 June. It lasted nearly three hours. The details of the meeting are unknown.
“But the only thing we can say, the president gave his assessment of the company’s [Wagner] actions during the Special Military Operation, and also his assessment of their actions during 24 June.
“Putin listened to explanations given by the commanders, and offered them further employment options, and others ways of combat deployment. The commanders gave their version of what happened, too.
“They stressed that they were staunch supporters and footmen of the head of the state and the Supreme Commander [Putin]. And also said that they were ready to keep fighting for the Motherland.”
Putin appears to have torn up a deal that was supposed to see Prigozhin exiled in Belarus, and 8,000 Wagner fighters rebase to Russia’s neighbouring country. After the meeting Priogozhin was returned his personal weapons confiscated by the FSB.
Prigozhin may seek to carry out “some great atrocity for the benefit of Russia” to work his way back with the Putin regime after his armed revolt aimed at toppling the defence minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of defence staff Valery Gerasimov, said one of Moscow’s most respected editors, Nobel prize-winner Dmitry Muratov.
Muratov said: “But he may commit some great atrocity for the benefit of Russia. He may try to organise an assassination attempt on [Volodymyr] Zelensky and bring the head of the President of Ukraine to the Kremlin.
In the wake of the aborted armed mutiny on 24 June, Putin swiftly withdrew threats to charge Prigozhin with treason – with the Wagner leader and around 8,000 of his force were supposed to go to Belarus.
Instead, Prigozhin is widely believed to have remained in Russia - and his Wagner force evidently remains intact.
The Kremlin meeting - with some agreement between Putin and a man nicknamed his “chef” - may explain this.
General Viktor Zolotov, head of the Russian national guard, and Sergei Naryshkin, chief of the SVR Russian foreign intelligence agency, both attended the session, as did senior Wagner commanders, according to Libération.
Putin’s spokesman said last week that the Kremlin had "neither the ability nor the desire" to track Prigozhin who came to prominence running banquets and catering contracts for the Russian dictator, before setting up proganadist ‘troll’ farms and his private army.
NATO leader Jens Stoltenberg revealed that “we monitor closely where the Wagner soldiers are moving around, and also where he [Prigozhin] is moving”.
There was no sign of a big movement to Belarus, he said.
“I will not go into the details, but we have seen some preparations for hosting large groups of Wagner soldiers in Belarus. So far we haven’t seen so many of them going to Belarus.”
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