Russia drops accusations of uprising and says Wagner will hand over weapons

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Russia dropped charges against the participants in the failed Wagner Group rebellion and said the paramilitaries had agreed to hand over their weapons.

With the Kremlin moving toward reorganizing its security forces following its agreement with Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, the country’s National Guard is now armed with tanks and heavy weaponry.

The announcements on Tuesday came after President Vladimir Putin urged Wagner fighters – some of Russia’s most effective fighters – to join the army, withdraw or leave the country.

Speaking to a group of soldiers and intelligence agents in the Kremlin on Tuesday, Putin added that the country’s security forces had “essentially stopped the civil war.”

The Russian president observed a minute’s silence for the pilots killed resisting Wagner’s advance in Moscow on Saturday, saying they had “honorably fulfilled their duty”.

However, the FSB, Russia’s main security service, said it closed its investigation into the weekend’s mutiny because the participants had “stopped activities directly aimed at committing the crime,” according to state news agency RIA Novosti.

Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said the Russian leader had decided not to prosecute Prigozhin over the country’s first attempted coup in three decades.

“There was a desire not to allow the worst-case scenario to happen,” Peskov said. “There have been some promises, and agreements are in the works.” He added that Putin “always keeps his word”.

And while the Kremlin said in the aftermath of the failed rebellion that the charges would be dropped, they later remained in force, apparently in an attempt to pressure Wagner into sticking to the agreement.

The Russian Defense Ministry, whose leaders have been the main target of Prigozhin’s wrath for months as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, added that Wagner was preparing to deliver weapons to the army.

“Preparations are underway for the transfer of heavy military equipment by the private military company Wagner to active units of the Russian armed forces,” the ministry said on Tuesday.

Wagner did not immediately confirm whether it would hand over its weapons.

Prigozhin claimed on Monday that Wagner had previously planned to hand over its equipment to the Defense Ministry — until the Russian military hit one of the group’s bases in an airstrike last week. The ministry said Prigozhin’s allegations were unfounded and no strike was carried out.

After attending Putin’s speech in the Kremlin on Tuesday, Viktor Zolotov, the head of the National Guard, said he discussed giving his units heavy weapons with the Russian president.

We do not have tanks and long-range heavy weapons. “We will integrate them into our units, relying on funding,” Zolotov told reporters, according to Interfax.

Zolotov, Putin’s former bodyguard, said Russia knew in advance of Prigozhin’s plans for revolution and accused Western countries of colluding with the warlords.

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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who helped broker the deal with Prigozhin, added that he had put the Belarusian military on high alert on Saturday after the uprising began in southern Russia.

He also warned the Belarusian opposition in exile against trying to exploit the unrest to “implement an armed rebellion scenario”.

In comments reported by the country’s national news agency, Belta, Lukashenko said on Tuesday he wanted to set things right about “the role Belarus played in resolving the conflict”.

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