Putin, pressure

Wagner mercenaries headed back to their base on Sunday after Russia’s President Vladimir Putin agreed to allow their leader to avoid treason charges and accept exile in neighbouring Belarus. The agreement halted an extraordinary crisis — a private army led by Putin’s former close ally Yevgeny Prigozhin trying to storm Moscow — but analysts said Wagner’s revolt had exposed Putin’s rule as more fragile than previously thought. Prigozhin was last seen late Saturday in an SUV leaving Rostov-on-Don, where his fighters had seized a military headquarters, to the cheers of some local people. Some shook his hand through the car window.Trucks carrying armoured vehicles with fighters on them followed his car. The mutiny was the culmination of his long-standing feud with the Russian military’s top brass over the conduct of the Russian operation in Ukraine. Ukraine revelled in the chaos, stepping up its own counter-offensive against Russian forces, while analysts also said the deal had exposed weakness in the Russian president’s grip on power. Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said he had negotiated the truce with Prigozhin. Moscow thanked him, but observers noted that an intervention by Lukashenko, usually seen as Putin’s junior partner, was itself an embarrassment.