Putin ‘holds meeting with Yevgeny Prigozhin’ amid claims Wagner chief will target Zelensky

Vladimir Putin has held secret talks at the Kremlin with the warlord who staged an armed mutiny against his regime, according to Western intelligence sources.

An unannounced session took place on July 1, a week after the revolt by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenary army, according to French publication Libération, citing secret service sources.

Since the alleged meeting, Prigozhin appears to be remaining in Russia rather than forced into exile in neighbouring Belarus as seemed his fate earlier.

The claims about a sensational head-to-head between Putin and Prigozhin come amid a chilling separate theory that the Wagner boss may be tasked with using his armed force to assassinate Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky – and ‘bring his head’ to the Kremlin.

Prigozhin may seek to carry out ‘some great atrocity for the benefit of Russia’ to work his way back in 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.

Prigozhin may seek to carry out ‘some great atrocity for the benefit of Russia’ to work his way back with the Putin regime, according to Dmitry Muratov

‘He must do something that will take away the taste of what Putin called ”a stab in the back of Russia”,’ Muratov claimed

Russia’s rebellious mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin walked free from prosecution for his June 24 armed mutiny

Members of the Wagner Group military company guard an area as others load their tank onto a truck on a street in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, Saturday, June 24, 2023

Prigozhin may attempt to assassinate Volodymyr Zelensky (pictured) to curry favour with the Kremlin, it has been claimed

‘I think [Yevgeny Prigozhin] may not ask for forgiveness [from Putin],’ said Muratov, who runs pioneering investigative news outlet Novaya Gazeta, told Zhivoy Gvozd YouTube show.

‘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.

‘He must do something that will take away the taste of what Putin called ”a stab in the back of Russia”.’

In the wake of the aborted armed mutiny on June 24, Putin swiftly withdrew threats to charge Prigozhin with treason and leading an insurrection.

But the Wagner leader and some 8,000 of his force were supposed to go to Belarus under the terms of an armistice agreement brokered by Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko.

Instead Prigozhin is widely believed to have remained in Russia – and his Wagner force evidently remains intact.

General Viktor Zolotov, head of the Russian national guard, and Sergei Naryshkin, chief of the SVR Russian foreign intelligence agency, both attended the secret session with Prigozhin along with 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 propagandist ‘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.

Prigozhin pictured entering the Kremlin with Putin

the Wagner leader and some 8,000 of his force were supposed to go to Belarus under the terms of an armistice agreement brokered by Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko (pictured)

Tents are seen at a newly-built camp on a site previously used by the Belarusian army that could potentially accommodate up to 5,000 Wagner troops, on July 07, 2023, 90 kilometres (approximately 55 miles) southeast of Minsk, in Asipovichy District, Belarus

‘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.’

He said Prigozhin had been ‘moving around a bit’, without saying where.

Meanwhile, Lukashenko – who mediated the exile deal to halt the armed mutiny – denied Prigozhin was in Belarus.

‘He’s in St Petersburg. He is not on the territory of Belarus,’ he said. 

Camps for Wagner mercenaries have been set up – but are unfilled, and Lukashenko is due to hold talks soon with Putin on the Wagner situation.

‘One should not lose such a unit despite all the subtle details,’ said Lukashenko, who then indicated Wagner was a superior fighting force to the Russian regular army.

‘I wish the entire army fought as well as these guys. But these are the problems of the Russian Federation and President Putin.’

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said the Russian security services ‘have the ability to detain Prigozhin or restrict his movements in Russia’ but were evidently not doing so.

His ‘ability to freely operate in Russia suggests that Prigozhin is still protected by some security guarantees and/or that the Kremlin continues to prioritise undermining his reputation in Russia over targeting [him] physically or legally.’

‘Putin can’t just dispose of him, which obviously shows the leader’s weakness. They are too financially and militarily intertwined to get rid of him right away,’ said Theresa Fallon, director of the Brussels-based Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies, as quoted by The Wall Street Journal.